NASA’s newest rover on Mars used a camera at the end of its robotic arm to take this photo with the nearby Ingenuity helicopter.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 4 meters away in this image from April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or ground, of the mission. Perseverance captured the image using a camera called WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering), part of the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument, located at the end of the rover’s robotic arm.
The perseverance selfie was ingeniously combined from 62 individual images taken while the rover was looking at the helicopter, then again while looking at the WATSON camera. Videos explaining how NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers take selfies can be found here.
Once the team is ready to attempt the first flight, Perseverance will receive and ingeniously transmit the final flight instructions from the JPL mission controllers. Several factors will determine the precise time of flight, including the modeling of local wind patterns informed by measurements made by the MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) on board Perseverance. The ingenuity will rotate its rotors at 2,537 rpm and, if all the final self-checks look good, it rises. After climbing at a rate of about 3 feet per second (1 meter per second), the helicopter will place at 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface for up to 30 seconds. Then the ingenuity will descend and touch back on the Martian surface.
A few hours after the first flight, Perseverance will download the first set of engineering data from Ingenuity and possibly images and videos from the rover’s navigation cameras and Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras. From the data described on the first night after the flight, the ingenuity team expects to be able to determine if the first attempt to fly to Mars was a success. The results of the flight tests will be discussed by the ingenuity team in a media conference on the same day.
NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory has built and manages the agency’s perseverance and ingenuity operations. Caltech of Pasadena, California, administers JPL for NASA. WATSON was built by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) in San Diego and is operated jointly by MSSS and JPL.
The demonstration activity of the Mars helicopter technology is supported by the Directorate of the Scientific Mission of NASA, the Directorate of the Aeronautical Research Mission and the Directorate of the Space Technology Mission.
A key objective for the mission of Perseverance on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the geology of the planet and the climate of the past, will pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and will be the first mission to collect and hide the rock and Martian rule (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (the European Space Agency), will send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for further analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance Mission is part of NASA’s approach to exploring the Moon on Mars, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon, which will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
For more about perseverance:
mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
For more about ingenuity:
go.nasa.gov/ingenuity
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
818-393-2433
[email protected]
Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501
[email protected] / [email protected]