![]() If it all looks good, then it's onto the next steps: unlocking the rotor blades, and testing out all the motors and sensors. Did it make it through the night? Is the solar panel working as expected? The team will check the temperatures and the battery recharge performance over the next couple of days. The Ingenuity team will be anxiously waiting to hear from the helicopter the next day. Then it's off to survive the first night on its own! Instead, when it wakes up on the surface after being dropped, it sets its thermostat to about 5F or lower. We are confident in the team’s ability to work through this. This is one still frame from a sequence captured by the camera while taking video. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast. Our best estimate of a targeted flight date is fluid right now, but we are working toward achieving these milestones and will set a flight date next week. NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its left Mastcam-Z camera. A new video combines footage of the solar-powered helicopter taken by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z imager with audio from a microphone belonging to the rover’s SuperCam laser instrument. Ingenuity can't afford to keep the temperature of its interior at a "balmy" 45F -that takes too much precious energy from the battery. Once we have passed these milestones, we will prepare Ingenuity for its first flight, which will take several sols, or Mars days. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used one of its two microphones to listen as the Ingenuity helicopter flew for the fourth time on April 30, 2021. This will occur as soon as possible after the drop. Of course, this means that the rover will drive away from Ingenuity after the drop so that we uncover the solar panel. ![]() But it's enough for Ingenuity's high-tech solar panel to charge the battery. No more free power from the rover!īut there is another free source of energy on Mars: the Sun! The Sun's energy is weaker at Mars-a little over half of what we would find here on Earth on a bright, sunny day. ![]() That's a good thing, because Ingenuity has to run its own heater from its own battery after the drop. That comfortably protects key components such as the battery and some of the sensitive electronics from harm at very cold temperatures.īefore Ingenuity drops the last few inches onto its airfield, Perseverance will charge up the little helicopter's battery to a 100 percent state-of-charge. This heater keeps the interior at about 45 degrees F through the bitter cold of the Martian night, where temperatures can drop to as low as -130F. Until now it has been connected to the Perseverance rover, which allowed Ingenuity to charge its battery as well as use a thermostat-controlled heater powered by the rover. Within a few days, Ingenuity will be on the surface of Mars.
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