Blog --- Ingenuity - Flight 26 and 61

From April 2021 to January 2024, the 1.5 kilogram Mars helicopter Ingenuity amazed us again and again, completing one flight after another, far more than originally thought. In the end, there were incredible 72 flights instead of the planned five and the hoped-for ten, and he pushed the actual star of the show, the 1000-kilo Mars rover Perseverance, a bit into the second row.

What most Mars enthusiasts have less on their radar:
Not only that NASA and the responsible JPL publishes all "raw images" of all rovers and the helicopter and make them accessible to everyone - these unedited raw data can be specifically selected and downloaded as a package. For example, images from Sol 414 and from one specific camera.

Pictures of Perseverance and Ingenuity
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/.../raw-images/

Thus also the images of the camera attached to the underside of the helicopter, which is pointed straight down and took pictures during the flights. I took a closer look at two of these flights, which I found to be among the most impressive.

The camera recorded a maximum of two frames per second, so the videos are rather jerky in nature despite the time-lapse.

Flight 26

On Sol 414 (April 19th, 2022), Ingenuity completed a complicated route with several changes of direction, crossing the backshell that protected the rover during its flight through space and during the immersion phase in the atmosphere.

It contained the parachutes and was released after the "Skycrane" ignited its rocket engines and brought the rover to the surface.

The backshell itself, together with the parachutes, fell further towards the surface, hit the Martian soil a few kilometers west of the rover and was destroyed on impact.

This has also happened during other missions, but it has never been studied up close afterwards. Even Perseverance was not guided near it, but Ingenuity was able to see it from a bird's eye view.

Flight 61

On Sol 993 (October 5, 2023), only a test flight was scheduled. Ingenuity took off and landed at the same place, in between the altitude was changed several times and tested how high the helicopter can fly without losing its orientation. The built-in altimeter only worked up to a height of 10 meters, beyond camera images had to be evaluated.

What impressed me about this actually boring flight was the way and accuracy with which Ingenuity approached the different altitudes, kept them stable and switched linearly to the next one.

True to the motto: I would like to go a little further up.

Excursion number 72 unfortunately was his last adventure, when landing the helicopter touched down near a dune ridge, the rotor blades hit the sand and partially broke off. Since then, it rests flightless but otherwise well in its final position, without radio contact to the rover and Earth, the mission has officially ended.

Now he waits the next 100 years for someone to pick him up, fly to earth and put him in a museum.

If humanity makes it till then, of course.

More information about the little guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter)
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/ingenuity-mars-helicopter/

List of all flights
https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/.../ingenuity-helicopter-flight-log.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...Ingenuity_flights

Nice Video with a map of all flights
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/see-ingenuitys-flight-map-72-helicopter-flights-on-mars/

The monster video of the rover landing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4czjS9h4Fpg

Size comparison of Mars missions that have landed so far
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER6EO4B7V68

Many thanks to everyone who made this show possible, especially the development team from Ingenuity, who have invested more than 10 years into their 3-pound project.

The next helicopter will certainly be realized, the only questions are when, in what shape and size.

Take care,
M