The Ingenuity drone has already made 4 successful flights.
The original plan was that he would fly 5 times, but the mission staff are so pleased with his first missions and the bird's eye view of the planet's surface that there will be a minimum of 3 more passes, and quite possibly more than a dozen.
several weeks of operation.
But the wheeled robots built by NASA have such incredible durability that the predicted 90 days easily turns into up to 15 years, as in the case of the Opportunity rover, which landed on Mars in 2004 and operated until 2019.
in a more practical way, i.e. to support the rover's activities.
The drone will fly over 260 meters, and during them the vehicle will search for suitable research sites using drills and lasers.
The helicopter is equipped with two cameras with a resolution of 12 Mpix, which allows you to take photos of the surface in 4K quality. For now, engineers are still testing their devices, but concrete steps will be taken soon to discover the traces of life.
According to the latest data, there are ideal conditions below the surface to sustain life.
But does it really exist there?
Hopefully the rover and drone will solve the mystery quickly, this unique drone-robot tandem shows that the future of exploring rocky alien worlds can be just this way.
A year ago, no one believed that the drone would fly at all, and now it turns out that not only does it fly like a wasp, but also such vehicles have great potential.