An ingenious helicopter takes the first color photo on Mars

(CNN) – We know now: this is the view from flying on Mars.

An Ingenuity helicopter took its first color photograph at 5.2 meters above the surface of Mars during a The second flight took place on April 22. It is now preparing for a third flight, scheduled for Sunday.

Creativity flew independently for about 52 seconds during a second flight, and rose approximately 4.9 meters into the Martian atmosphere. After a short flight, the helicopter tilted 5 ° and moved sideways to a distance of 2.1 meters.

The helicopter returned to its place several times. This allowed the Ingenuity color camera to shoot in different directions before landing again in the middle of the airport. During your first trip Conducted on April 19, only creativity was collected Black and white photos Using your navigation camera.

The color image shared by NASA on Friday is the first taken by an aerial craft while it was on the surface of Mars. On either side of the image you can see the landing pads for two of the four legged helicopter.

The shadow of a helicopter can be seen on the surface of Mars at the bottom of the image.

The view from helicopter perspective reveals the footprints made by the Perseverance Rover when it first deposited the helicopter in the middle of its 10-meter-long and 10-meter-wide airport, now known as the Wright Brothers Field.

You can also peek at the Mars horizon in the upper left and right corner of the image.

The helicopter team believes this image helps demonstrate Ingenuity’s unique exploration capabilities and other helicopters that could be formed in the future.

Dexterity never wastes time. The 1.8-kilogram helicopter is scheduled to fly again Sunday morning. Data and images will begin to flow into the control room of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, at 10:16 a.m. Miami time.

Each journey is more challenging than the previous one. On Sunday’s flight, the helicopter will rise at the same altitude, about 5 meters above the surface of Mars, but this time it will accelerate.

On previous flights, the creativity was moving at a speed of approximately 0.5 meters per second. Now the helicopter will increase this speed and will travel at two meters per second.

The helicopter will fly 50 meters to the north before returning to the ground in place.

The mission team is planning a total flight time of 80 seconds, the longest to date, with a range of about 100 meters.

“Although this number may not sound like much, bear in mind that we never moved sideways a distance equivalent to more than two pens when we did the flight test in the dump room here on Earth,” wrote Harvard Grip, the pilot. Ingenuity Mars helicopter in JPL, at Prof. Raising the level of.

“And while the four meters of lateral movement on the second flight (two meters back and then two meters back) was remarkable, and provided a lot of great data, it was only four meters. As such, the third flight is a wonderful step, as creativity begins in Experience freedom in the sky. “

Dexterity still has an extra week to make two additional trips before the end of the 31-day mission.

“Although we are conducting our flight tests in a thin atmosphere of more than 290 million kilometers from Earth, we have designed our methodology for a test flight in the manner of the Wright brothers,” writes Gribe. “Our plan from day one was to prepare like crazy, fly, analyze data (like crazy) and then plan a bolder test for the next flight.”

Check back here Sunday for updates on the historic third flight of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter.