NASA's Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Flies to the Red Planet for the 36th Time

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity just set a personal record after flying for more than 30 times to the Red Planet.

Ingenuity recently completed its 36th Mars sortie last Sunday after staying in the air for 60.5 seconds while traveling 361 feet (110 meters) of horizontal distance, as reported first by Space.com.

Height Record

The flight on Sunday came just one week after Ingenuity broke the previous record for height by rising 46 feet (14 m) above the surface of Mars' Jezero Crater. The latest flight log for the operation shows that the helicopter rose no higher than 33 feet (10 meters) over the Martian dirt.

Additionally, the latest flight has required Ingenuity to land on far more difficult terrain than the team had ever envisioned.

But Ingenuity was prepared to take off for regular flights now that the crew has had time to evaluate how the little helicopter is reacting to its improvements, as per CNN's report.

Ingenuity is entrusted with proving that powered flight is feasible on Mars even with the planet's tenuous atmosphere. On February 2021, it successfully landed on the planet with NASA's Perseverance rover.

During a five-flight operation in the spring of 2021, the helicopter accomplished its main goal flawlessly. Ingenuity then transitioned into a longer mission, during which it is testing the limits of Red Planet flying and acting as a scout for Perseverance.

Early Martian Life

In the meantime, the rover is gathering numerous samples while looking for evidence of early Martian life. If all goes as planned, a joint NASA/European Space Agency operation might bring this Mars material back to Earth as soon as 2033.

Ingenuity's flight log shows that throughout the course of its 36 flights, the helicopter covered a distance of 24,633 feet (7,517 m) and was in the air for nearly 61 minutes.

However, Perseverance has an even more impressive record. This highly-advanced rover has traveled a total of 8.53 miles (13.73 km) on the bottom of the Jezero crater, which is believed to have had a lake and a river delta billions of years ago.

Hence, this location is an attractive place for NASA's Mars operations since they could uncover compelling evidence that the planet was once habitable.

Meanwhile, NASA's Opportunity Mars rover has traveled 28.06 miles (48.15 km) miles on its odometer during its Mars exploration from 2004 to 2018. This robot has traveled further than any of its kind on the surface of an extraterrestrial planet.