NASA Shares First Aerial Photos Of Mars Captured By Ingenuity Helicopter

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on the Martian surface has shared its first-ever coloured images captured during its second successful flight in the red planet’s atmosphere.??

NASA

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The photographs were captured when the helicopter was roughly around 17 feet above the ground, on April 22, 2021. However, these images were shared by NASA just yesterday.

The mini helicopter captured three images during this test run. The images were captured on Ingenuity’s colour camera that sports a 4208x3120 pixel sensor. The image was captured with the camera angled around 22 degrees below the horizon.?

The images show the tyre marks of the six wheels that help the Perseverance rover move through the planet and the shadow of the drone itself on the ‘Wright Brother’s Field’.?

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In case you don’t remember when the Ingenuity helicopter took its maiden flight successfully, the field where the helicopter took off from was named after the inventors of the first-ever aircraft -- the Wright Brothers -- in their honour. The photographs also gave us a glimpse of the horizons of the red planet.

NASA

Ingenuity also conducted its third test flight this Sunday when it rose even higher and flew for longer than before. The drone went as high as 50 metres north across the Martian surface at a speed of 7.2 kilometres per hour. This test run went on for about 80 seconds.?

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NASA said in a statement, “Perseverance itself is located top centre, just out the frame. 'Wright Brothers Field' is in the vicinity of the helicopter's shadow, bottom centre, with the actual point of takeoff of the helicopter just below the image. A portion of the landing pads on two of the helicopter's four landing legs can be seen in on the left and right sides of the image, and a small portion of the horizon can be seen at the upper right and left corners.”

NASA

NASA has announced that it is now prepping for a fourth flight. The Ingenuity experiment is expected to end in a month’s time, to allow Perseverance to get back to its task of searching for signs of past microbial life.