Martian helicopter “Ingenuity” (Ingenuity) weighing 1,8 kg rose on April 30 at 17:49 Moscow time from the bottom of the Yezero crater on Mars and made its fourth, most difficult flight on the Red Planet.

Snapshot of “Ingenuity” before the 4th flight

Recall: the flight was originally scheduled for yesterday, but did not take place for technical reasons. But today, the team reported on Twitter: “Success. The Martian helicopter made its fourth flight, moving farther and faster than ever before. He also took more photographs while flying over the surface of Mars. We expect these images to be captured in a later data transfer, but the Hazcam Mars rover “Perseverance”) has already sent a picture taken during the flight. “

Snapshot of “Ingenuity” during the 4th flight

If everything went according to plan, the helicopter crew said the drone took 60 photos with the downward-facing navigation camera and five with a 13-megapixel color camera during its fourth flight. By the way, JPL recently published a mini-video from the navigation camera taken during the 3rd flight:

It is not clear yet whether Ingenuity will take a picture of the Perseverance rover from the air – during the third flight, the rover got into one of the photos. Anyway, there are two microphones aboard the Perseverance, and today the rover has attempted to record the sound of a drone for the first time.

Aerial shot of “Persistence” during the 3rd flight – rover in the upper left corner

The Mars spacecraft Ingenuity achieved all of its technological goals during the previous three test flights, which took place on April 19, April 22 and April 25. Therefore, during the fourth launch, the operators decided to go further: the drone climbed 5 meters, covered a distance of 266 meters and reached a maximum speed of 13 km / h, staying in the air for 117 seconds. Previously, the maximum distance was 100 m, the speed was 7,2 km / h, and the flight time was 80 seconds (the take-off altitude did not increase).

Snapshot of “Ingenuity” before the 4th flight

JPL has proven that flights in the Martian atmosphere are quite possible and is now moving into a demonstration phase, during which it will try to understand how aerial observation and other technical capabilities of such equipment can help in future missions.

As a reminder, the car-sized Perseverance rover landed inside the 45-kilometer diameter Jezero crater on February 18 – then the 1,8 kg helicopter was still firmly attached to the bottom of the rover when folded. After dropping the casing, “Perseverance” deployed “Ingenuity”, brought the helicopter’s battery charge to 100%, unloaded it to the surface of Mars and drove a short distance, allowing sunlight to reach the helicopter powered by solar panels. Until this moment, the drone was powered by the rover, and then switched to receiving energy exclusively from the Sun – it is required not only for flights, but also for heating during cold Martian nights (the temperature drops to -90 ° C).