The Helicopter on Mars Just Flew Again After Surviving an Emergency Landing
Freeman writes:
By the standard of some of its previous flights, the most recent voyage of NASA's intrepid Ingenuity helicopter on Mars was nothing special. Over a period of 24 seconds, the small helicopter rose to an altitude 5 meters above the red planet's dusty surface and then touched back down in the same spot.
[...] Mission success for Ingenuity was completing five relatively short flights. However, since its first test flight in April 2021, the helicopter has exceeded all expectations by flying more than 50 different sorties across Mars and surviving long and dark winters.
[...] "Since the very first flight, we have included a program called 'LAND_NOW' that was designed to put the helicopter on the surface as soon as possible if any one of a few dozen off-nominal scenarios was encountered," Teddy Tzanetos, team lead emeritus for Ingenuity, said. "During Flight 53, we encountered one of these, and the helicopter worked as planned and executed an immediate landing."
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