Ingenuity completes 54th flight, a short hop after previous flight ended prematurely
Click for interactive map.
According to the Ingenuity engineering team, Ingenuity has successfully completed its 54th flight on Mars, a short 25 second hop up and down that was done to try to figure out why the previous flight previous flight, #53, had ended prematurely.
Flight 53 was planned as a 136-second scouting flight dedicated to collecting imagery of the planet’s surface for the Perseverance Mars rover science team. The complicated flight profile included flying north 666 feet (203 meters) at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) and a speed of 5.6 mph (2.5 meters per second), then descending vertically to 8 feet (2.5 meters), where it would hover and obtain imagery of a rocky outcrop. Ingenuity would then climb straight up to 33 feet (10 meters) to allow its hazard divert system to initiate before descending vertically to touch down.
Instead, the helicopter executed the first half of its autonomous journey, flying north at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) for 466 feet (142 meters). Then a flight-contingency program was triggered, and Ingenuity automatically landed. The total flight time was 74 seconds.
This explains why, after the 53rd flight, the engineering team had not immediately added that flight to the helicopter’s flight log. That log is now updated to include both the 53rd and 54th flights, but the data from the 53rd flight was held back until after the 54th flight was completed.
The green dot in the overview map above shows Ingenuity’s present position, only a few feet to the west from its previous position shown here. The blue dot indicates Perseverance’s present position. The red dotted line indicates the planned route of the rover.
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Click for interactive map.
According to the Ingenuity engineering team, Ingenuity has successfully completed its 54th flight on Mars, a short 25 second hop up and down that was done to try to figure out why the previous flight previous flight, #53, had ended prematurely.
Flight 53 was planned as a 136-second scouting flight dedicated to collecting imagery of the planet’s surface for the Perseverance Mars rover science team. The complicated flight profile included flying north 666 feet (203 meters) at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) and a speed of 5.6 mph (2.5 meters per second), then descending vertically to 8 feet (2.5 meters), where it would hover and obtain imagery of a rocky outcrop. Ingenuity would then climb straight up to 33 feet (10 meters) to allow its hazard divert system to initiate before descending vertically to touch down.
Instead, the helicopter executed the first half of its autonomous journey, flying north at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) for 466 feet (142 meters). Then a flight-contingency program was triggered, and Ingenuity automatically landed. The total flight time was 74 seconds.
This explains why, after the 53rd flight, the engineering team had not immediately added that flight to the helicopter’s flight log. That log is now updated to include both the 53rd and 54th flights, but the data from the 53rd flight was held back until after the 54th flight was completed.
The green dot in the overview map above shows Ingenuity’s present position, only a few feet to the west from its previous position shown here. The blue dot indicates Perseverance’s present position. The red dotted line indicates the planned route of the rover.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I still marvel, “WE can’t work on Mars, there’s NO air!”
But a helo can fly around just fine…..