Ingenuity Mars helicopter completes 33rd mission to the Red Planet.

 

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on the Martian surface. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

On its 33rd extraterrestrial mission this past weekend, NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter took to the skies once more and remained in the air for nearly a minute.

On Saturday (Sept. 24), NASA's life-seeking Perseverance rover took to the skies of Mars with Ingenuity, completing a flight in just over 55 seconds. According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages the missions of both Ingenuity and Perseverance, the 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) rotorcraft soared approximately 33 feet (10 meters) in the air and moved approximately 365 feet (111 meters) before alighting in a new location.

On Tuesday (Sept. 27), JPL officials tweeted, "If you look closely at this image, you’ll see Ingenuity’s leg and tiny shadow."

Perseverance is exploring Jezero Crater, which once had a lake and a river delta, with the assistance of ingenuity. A sample-return mission to the region is planned for later in the 2020s by NASA and the European Space Agency. This mission will use helicopters similar to Ingenuity to collect Perseverance samples and transport them to a rocket for return to Earth.

The team has positioned the sample-return mission and Perseverance's collection of samples as essential to comprehending Mars' past and the possibility of life there.

Ingenuity's shadow is visible at the bottom left of this image during its 33rd flight, on Sept. 24, 2022. (Image credit: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Perseverance, on the other hand, encountered some difficulties earlier in the week when attempting a rock abrasion. According to a JPL blog post (opens in new tab) published on Wednesday (Sept. 28), the rock known as "Chiniak" completely disintegrated as a result of the unexpected reaction of the Martian surface to the tools used by Perseverance.

Eleanor Moreland, a Ph.D. student at Rice University, wrote in the post, "While we had to forgo abrasion proximity science on this target, we gained information about the cohesiveness and strength of the rock and had the opportunity to observe and compare both freshly broken and weathered rock surfaces."

Moreland added, "A new target was selected for a successful abrasion just a couple of days later thanks to the quick work of the science and engineers."