NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Concludes 20 Flights in Red Planet, But Its Not Stopping There

NASA's Ingenuity Marcs helicopter has already reached its 20th successful flight in the complex and rocky terrain of the Red Planet.

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter

Its latest feat shows that the chopper has already massively surpassed its initial supposed number of flights, which is only at five.

As per a news story by Space.com, the Mars chopper of NASA has successfully capped off its Flight 20, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the United States space agency announced.

The Ingenuity Mars helicopter was initially supposed to operate in the Red Planet only five times, but it has since received an extension grant, stretching it to more than a dozen, and now on its 20th flight.

It comes as the Mars chopper has aced its initial missions, thus proving itself to be granted an extension to operate in the rocky terrain of the Red Planet.

The Ingenuity helicopter is working side-by-side with NASA's Perseverance rover, exploring the surface of the Martian planet to help humankind further study Mars before its upcoming human landing mission.

NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter: Flight 20

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA in California proudly announced on its Twitter account on Feb. 26 that the "Flight 20" of the Ingenuity Mars chopper was a success.

The 20th flight of the Mars helicopter took 130.3 seconds, which covered up to 391 meters or 1,283 feet in total. On average, its speed for a second was at 9.8 mph.

According to a recent report by ScreenRant, the Mars helicopter has just recently concluded its 19th flight, defying odds in the Red Planet.

The successful flight of the small helicopter on Mars did not conclude without any challenges, reminding the folks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory regarding the complex environment of the Red Planet.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that the environment of the Martian planet is not only challenging, but it is highly unpredictable as well.

In fact, the Mars chopper recently faced a dust storm in the rocky and sandy terrain of the planet.

After the Mars dust storm, the cameras of the Ingenuity helicopter got filled with dust, making its lenses blurry. As a solution, NASA made some software changes to mask out the blurry parts of the images.

On top of that, the blades of the helicopter were also filled with dust, which got cleaned by performing a "servo wiggle."

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Written by Teejay Boris