Perseverance Watches Carefully as Ingenuity Lifts Off for its 47th Flight

By Nancy Atkinson - March 16, 2023 at 11:53 AM UTC | Planetary Science
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In some of the best footage yet, the Perseverance rover has taken new video of the Ingenuity helicopter taking off and flying over Mars' surface.

This video shows the dust initially kicked up by the helicopter's spinning rotors, as well as Ingenuity taking off, hovering, and beginning its 440-meter (1,444-foot) journey to the southwest. The video was captured on March 9, 2023. At the time the video was taken, the rover was about 120 meters (394 feet) from the helicopter.

Although they're operated separately, NASA keeps the two robots close together so they can work together, with Ingenuity scouting ahead for potential hazards and areas of interest for Perseverance. For this flight, Ingenuity reached an altitude of 12 meters, repositioning itself for an upcoming flight, and capturing images of science targets along its path.

This is the 47thflight of the tiny rotorcraft. It later landed successfully and off camera at what's been dubbed Airfield Iota.

Originally, the helicopter was intended to perform a 30-day technology demonstration, making five flights at altitudes ranging 3–5 m (10–16 ft) for up to 90 seconds each. Now, it's made nearly 50 flights, regularly traveling well over hundreds of meters/feet.

Together, Perseverance and Ingenuity are conducting a several month exploration of an area called Delta Top," a region that may have had a life-friendly river delta and lake billions of years ago.

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You can see the original images and videos at JPL's Photojournal website.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com