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Ingenuity manages to break its own records

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I have a certain predilection for Ingenuity, the first human-made aircraft capable of flying on another planet (excluding, of course, the modules used on manned missions to the Moon to return astronauts to orbit). . And don’t get me wrong, I’m not discounting the value of Mars Perseverance and hundreds of other fascinating space exploration missions, but I’m especially fascinated by the mini helicopter that, In a few days, he will be a year old flying on Mars.

Indeed, it’s been nearly a year since Ingenuity had us all cheering and clapping when its maiden flight on the red planet was completed, and it’s done nothing but outdo itself ever since. And it is that, let us remember, the original plan was for Ingenuity to carry out five flights, in which he would take quite a few images of his surroundings. Some photos that would later be transferred to Perseverance, which in turn would send them to Earth. Five missions.

Y NASA has confirmed the success of its 25th flight. Yes, she has multiplied by five the initial objectives of the mission, and at least for now, let’s cross our fingers, nothing indicates that she is at the end of her useful life. And the clearest proof of this is that, as we told you a few days ago, this last flight was a record or, to be more exact, a record. And it has been the longest flight, with a distance of 704 meters, but also the fastest to date, with a speed of almost 20 kilometers per houras we can read in Slah Gear.

Ingenuity manages to break its own records

As we told you at the time, a second task was soon added to its initial mission of taking images: prospecting the terrain. to increase the safety of Perseverance movements, a task to which he has dedicated himself during the last year, despite the fact that initially this task was reserved for future helicopters from other missions. Of course, if, as we recalled a few days ago, NASA has given us with Hubble a lesson in devices that far exceed their initial goals, we can see in these new Ingenuity achievements one more example of this.

These days the Ingenuity is gradually approaching an area of ​​the Jezero crater in which researchers think there was a large body of water millions of years ago. Thus, the objective is to draw the path that Perseverance will have to follow to reach that point in order to take samples. Some samples that seek to verify if, at that time, there was life on Mars.

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