Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Completes Longest Flight in Almost a Year

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has surpassed all expectations during its time on the red planet, and in case you thought it was slowing down, think again. NASA just sent the robot on its longest flight in almost a year, covering more than a thousand feet of distance, to land at its 29th impromptu airfield.

This was Ingenuity’s 43rd flight since its arrival on Mars two (Earth) years ago. The drone lifted off, reaching an altitude of 39 feet (12 meters), and then traveled 1,280 feet (390 meters) before setting down. It took a total of 146 seconds to fly from Airfield Gamma to Airfield Epsilon — NASA ran out of Latin letters early this year, so it switched to Greek. Only the first location, Wright Brothers Field, had a real name.

NASA hadn’t received updated images from Ingenuity when it announced the news, so the tweet below features an image from the 42nd flight in early February. Raw images from the latest flight are now available on NASA’s Ingenuity flight log page, but they have not been color processed.

Ingenuity was designed as a technology demonstration, riding along to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover. The helicopter was built using mainly off-the-shelf components, including a Qualcomm smartphone processor. Most hardware deployed on Mars or in space has to be designed to cope with the extreme temperatures and radiation. The team didn’t expect Ingenuity to survive very long, certainly not beyond its first Martian winter, but here we are.

Ingenuity has completed Flight 43 – its longest flight in nearly a year! 🎉

The #MarsHelicopter traveled 1,280 ft (390 m) across the Martian surface for 145.99 seconds at a max. altitude of 40 ft (12 m). https://t.co/1CXIWdYIAQ pic.twitter.com/wxSVvSRcaN

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) February 16, 2023

You’d have to go back to April 2022 to find a longer Ingenuity flight, when the vehicle flew just over 2,300 feet (704 meters) between Airfields P and Q. That was before winter took hold, but Ingenuity continued to make shorter flights throughout the season. Now that spring has arrived on Mars, the helicopter is still performing as well as it did before temperatures plummeted.

NASA has been so impressed with Ingenuity that it has updated plans for the Mars Sample Return project to include a pair of similar vehicles. The eventual lander that will collect Perseverance’s rock cores will have two Ingenuity-style helicopters, which have replaced the single rover previously planned for the mission. That mission is currently set for the late 2020s. If things keep going the way they are, Ingenuity could still be flying by then.

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