The helicopter will move 150 meters in a south-easterly direction and take several pictures of a section of the planet's surface
NEW YORK, May 20. /TASS/. The Mars-based Ingenuity helicopter will make its sixth flight over the planet's surface next week and move to a new location. This is reported on the website of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
According to NASA, the helicopter will rise to an altitude of about 10 meters and move 150 meters in a south-easterly direction at a speed of up to four meters per second. Ingenuity will take several images of a section of the Martian surface that is of interest to scientists. After that, it will fly 50 meters in a north-easterly direction and land at a new point.
The exact timing of Ingenuity's sixth mission to Mars is not known. According to experts from the US space agency, its total duration will be about 140 seconds. The data and images taken during the flight will arrive on Earth within a few days.
Ingenuity, which has a mass of 1.8 kg, first rose to a height of 3 meters above the surface of Mars on April 19. His flight then lasted only 39.1 seconds. On April 22, it rose to a height of 5 meters and flew off to the side by 2 meters. On April 25, the helicopter was able to cover a distance of 50 meters and return. On April 30, Ingenuity made its fourth flight, and on May 7, its fifth, landing in a new location for the first time.
The helicopter, which cost $80 million to develop, was delivered to the Jezero crater on the Red Planet along with the Perseverance rover on February 18. The purpose of this mission is to try to find traces of possible existence in the distant past of life on Mars.
