Mars through the “eyes” of a drone: NASA showed a video of the record flight Ingenuity

NASA showed the flight of its Ingenuity drone on Mars.

How it was?

The video shows the 25th flight of Ingenuity since the start of the mission, which took place on April 8, but was only shown the other day. It set a record for Ingenuity: the drone covered 704 meters at a speed of more than 19 km / h, it was the fastest and longest drone flight on Mars. After reaching a height of 10 meters, the drone headed southwest, flying over a cluster of sand ripples and then over rocks.

The flight lasted 161.3 seconds, but in the video it was sped up by about 5 times. Before landing, the navigation camera of the drone is automatically turned off so that dust does not interfere with the operation of the system.

By the way, Ingenuity flights are autonomous. NASA employees send tasks in advance to the Perseverance Mars rover, which then transmits these commands to the drone.

Controllers recently lost contact with Ingenuity, but now it has been restored, so the drone is preparing for new missions.

Source: NASA