Ingenuity completes 64th flight on Mars
Click for interactive map.
Click for original image.
In a pattern that is beginning to be almost routine, on October 27, 2023 the Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its 64th flight on Mars, flying 1,348 feet at a speed of 13 mph for 139 seconds at an altitude of 39 feet.
As with most of its recent flights, the distance and time was slightly longer than the flight plan, likely because the helicopter took extra time finding a good landing spot.
On the overview map above, the green line marks the flight path, and the green dot the helicopter’s present position. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present position. The yellow lines indicate the area covered by the color image to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here. This image was taken by Ingenuity just a few seconds before landing, and looks across the floor of Neretva Vallis, where Perseverance will soon be traveling.
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Click for interactive map.
Click for original image.
In a pattern that is beginning to be almost routine, on October 27, 2023 the Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its 64th flight on Mars, flying 1,348 feet at a speed of 13 mph for 139 seconds at an altitude of 39 feet.
As with most of its recent flights, the distance and time was slightly longer than the flight plan, likely because the helicopter took extra time finding a good landing spot.
On the overview map above, the green line marks the flight path, and the green dot the helicopter’s present position. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present position. The yellow lines indicate the area covered by the color image to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here. This image was taken by Ingenuity just a few seconds before landing, and looks across the floor of Neretva Vallis, where Perseverance will soon be traveling.
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.
Blue sky? Is this a false-color image?
Andi,
“Why is a Mars sunset blue? It’s all to do with the dust in the Martian air. The bluish tinge comes from the fact the fine dust on Mars is the right size so for blue light to penetrates the atmosphere more efficiently. When the blue light scatters, it stays closer to the direction of the sun than the light of other colours. The rest of the sky is yellow to orange, as yellow and red light scatter all over the sky instead of being absorbed or staying close to the sun.”
https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/29/the-sunset-on-mars-is-blue-heres-why-8190019
Ian C: I think there is some truth to the hypothesis for the blue sky offered at the link you provide, but that was a sunset. No sunset occurred here.
I honestly do not know why the sky is always blue in Ingenuity’s color images. They have never explained it. It could be a function of the camera’s color filters, or the timing of these flights (which always occur at midday on Mars). It could also be that the sky on Mars is sometimes blue.
I just don’t know.
Bob — Just sent the Ingenuity team an email. Will post the answer.