Toni Dimaano Science 12.06.2022 23:Dec PM EST

NASA's Mars Ingenuity Helicopter's Flight 35 Sets Record High Altitude

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter raises the bar as it soars 46 feet (14 meters) above Mars to set a new altitude record on Saturday, December 3.

The Ingenuity helicopter has flown 35 times and previously recorded an altitude of 39 feet (12 meters) on three Mars flights, Space writes.

Another Successful Flight To Mars Makes History

Flight 35 lasted for 52 seconds and covered 46 feet (15 meters) of ground as the Ingenuity hovers 46 feet in Mars' atmosphere as it repositions to scope out the landscape of the red planet.

With this, NASA's Mars Ingenuity rotorcraft has set a new soaring record as it coasts for almost 50 feet above the Martian ground.

In February 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover landed on the Jezero Crater and soon deployed the Ingenuity rotorcraft to embark on a mission to show that powered flights are possible on Mars.

Despite the initial technology-demonstrating phase only lasting for less than a month, the space agency immediately granted a mission extension to keep Ingenuity flying.

The Perseverance rover is currently looking for signs of ancient life on Mars and is collecting a series of samples from Jezero, which hosted a lake and a river delta billions of years ago.

According to CNet, Ingenuity has surveyed the surface of Mars, flying and surviving harsh conditions, but it proved that it could handle challenging terrain over and over again.

Ingenuity's Software Update Made The Record-Breaking Flight Possible

Ingenuity is a rotorcraft that weighs 1.8 kilograms, powered to fly over Mars on solar power to charge its batteries and internal heaters to maintain operational temperature on cold Martian nights.

In April 2021, the helicopter, which was designed to fly for as long as 90 seconds, flew for the first time at a 10 feet (3 meters) altitude for 39 seconds.

According to Republic World, this achievement comes after Ingenuity tallied its shortest flight at 18 seconds at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters).

This short flight became significant for NASA as it allowed the agency to make specific adjustments to the rotorcraft's software, allowing it to set its most recent record on Saturday.

The new software update provides Ingenuity with two major capabilities, namely the hazard avoidance when landing and the use of digital elevation maps to help navigate it.

According to Space, this allowed Ingenuity to perform its first flight since November 22 last Saturday, which is the second attempt to fly the helicopter since the update was performed.

The update was extremely important to avoid collision as the helicopter flies on its own with minimal commands sent from Earth in advance.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory team says that this update's integration of the new hazard avoidance feature was critical as Ingenuity operates on a much more challenging terrain, Republic World reports.

With Ingenuity covering the distance it did on Flight 53, it has now traveled a total of 24,302 feet (7,407 meters), and has stayed up for 59.9 minutes, as recorded in its mission flight log.