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The 4-pound helicopter will attempt its fourth flight over the Red Planet Thursday at 10:12 a.m.ET or 12:30 p.m. local Mars time. Data will begin streaming to the control room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., At 1:21 p.m. ET.
“Millions of miles away, Ingenuity checked all the technical boxes we had at NASA on the possibility of powered and controlled flight on the red planet,” said Lori Glaze, director of the planetary science division. from NASA, in a statement.
“Future Mars exploration missions can now confidently consider the additional capability that aerial exploration can bring to a science mission.”
Ingenuity is a tech demo, which means she has a limited amount of time to achieve the goals set by her mission team.
Data from its experimental flights to Mars this month could inform the design of other rotorcraft to fly to Mars and other planets that can act as scouts for rovers and astronauts.
The three main objectives of Ingenuity were to fly through the thin Martian atmosphere; demonstration of motorized and controlled flight on another planet; and pushing the abilities that Ingenuity has shown in tests on Earth. All of these goals have been achieved in the helicopter’s three flights so far.
“When Ingenuity’s landing stages landed after that third flight, we knew we had accumulated more than enough data to help engineers design future generations of Mars helicopters,” J. said. Balaram, chief engineer of Ingenuity at JPL, in a statement. “We are now planning to extend our range, speed and duration to better understand performance.”
According to the fourth flight plan, Ingenuity will climb to its usual altitude of 16 feet (5 meters), then fly south for 276 feet (84 meters). It will pass over rocks, small impact craters and ripples of sand and use its black and white navigation camera to image this intriguing landscape every 4 feet (1.2 meters).
Ingenuity will travel a total of 436 feet (133 meters) downstream from its “helipad” at Wright Brothers Field, stop for a flyby and collect images with its color camera before returning to its landing site.
“To reach the distance necessary for this reconnaissance flight, we will be breaking our own records on Mars set on the third flight,” Johnny Lam, deputy pilot of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter at JPL, said in a statement. “We are increasing the flight time from 80 seconds to 117 seconds, increasing our top speed from 2 meters per second to 3.5 (4.5 mph at 8), and more than doubling our total range.”
The Perseverance rover will also be set to capture footage and video of Ingenuity’s flight.
Once the data and images are returned from the fourth flight, the mission team will determine their plan for the fifth sortie from the helicopter. These plans for the remaining flight campaign will be discussed during a virtual briefing hosted by NASA on Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET.
“We looked at several options for what a flight five might look like,” Balaram said. “But ask me what they entail after a successful Flight 4. The team remains committed to building our flight experience step by step.”
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