Washington. August 17. INTERFAX-The helicopter-drone Ingenuity ("Ingenuity"), which arrived on Mars together with the Perseverance rover ("Perseverance"), made the 12th successful autonomous flight on the Red Planet, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported.
"During the last flight, a Martian helicopter visited the South Seita region, which is interesting from a geological point of view. It rose to a height of 10 meters and flew for 169 seconds approximately 450 meters to inspect the terrain for (the rover) Perseverance, " the report says.
The flight was carried out on Monday. The mission's tasks included photographing the area in order to determine whether it is of interest for exploration by the rover. The Ingenuity helicopter drone took 10 color images and transmitted them to the rover for relaying to Earth to the NASA Mars Rover control team.
During the entire stay on the Red Planet, the helicopter, having already made 12 flights, flew a total of 2.67 km, being generally above the surface of Mars for almost 22 minutes. The longest was the 9th flight, then it flew 625 meters.
During the first flight on Mars on April 19, the helicopter rose to a height of only three meters and spent 39 seconds above the surface of Mars.
The Ingenuity device is 1.2 meters in diameter and weighs 1.8 kg, it is equipped with two cameras, it is able to hover in the air for 20-30 seconds to photograph the area.
The Perseverance rover with the Ingenuity helicopter made a successful landing on the surface of the Red Planet on February 18.
The American automatic interplanetary station to Mars was launched on July 30 last year.
