NASA’s Mars helicopter has taken to the skies again after a lengthy break due to bitterly cold conditions on the distant planet.
The space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory , which is overseeing the current Mars mission, took to Twitter to share news of Ingenuity’s return to the martian skies, revealing that the flight involved a “short hop” to enable the team to test that it’s still working OK and to remove dust from its solar panel.
Learn more about why the team wanted a simple Flight 30: https://t.co/02Bn48aQ3Y pic.twitter.com/bnCUG794Ks Saturday’s lift-off marked Ingenuity’s 30th sortie and came 16 months after its historic maiden flight, when it became the first aircraft to achieve controlled, powered flight on a planet other than Earth.
According to a plan released prior to Saturday’s sortie, the flight involved Ingenuity climbing to a maximum altitude of 16.5 feet , flying sideways about 6.5 feet , and then coming back down to land. The flight was expected to last about 33 seconds, though this has yet to be confirmed.
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