Mars helicopter jumps out of hibernation

It’s been more than two months since the Mars helicopter took off for the last time. Where June 11 It had to cleverness Endure the nights when it’s over -86°C gets cold. Dust covers solar panels. And because it’s winter on Mars, the little helicopter doesn’t get enough power anyway to keep the platforms up at night.

connection problems The result was, which is why winter holidays were announced instead of Mars sightseeing flights. Now, NASA is letting creativity take off again. The US space agency is clearly happy on Twitter:

The charge that Ingenuity could absorb with its solar cells during the day was enough for at least a small “leap”. 30 seconds The helicopter was in the air. At the same time moved 2 meters to the side.

according to Flight 30 This seems a bit strange, after all, the little helicopter in Flight 25 has already done it More than 700 meters lump sum. However, the jump should be short so that problems do not occur due to insufficient power in the batteries. The main purpose of the trip was to get the dust off the solar panels and test the functionality of the Ingenuity.

Creativity gets Navi . update

Regular flight operations are set to resume in the coming weeks as the Martian winter draws to a close. It will likely run until September/October.

Anyway, there is already one for September Flight program update Scheme. This is designed to help Ingenuity better navigate the challenging terrain of the river delta that it plans to fly over in the coming months.