Tag: Perseverance Rover

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Reaches a Total of 30 Minutes Aloft

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Ingenuity sits on a slightly inclined surface with about 6-degree tilt at the center of the frame, just north of the southern ridge of “Séíitah” geologic unit. The Perseverance rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument took this image on Dec. 1, 2021, when the rotorcraft was about 970 feet (295 meters) away. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

With its recent 17th flight, the Red Planet rotorcraft reaches an airborne milestone the team never considered achievable. Its 18th flight is scheduled for no earlier than today.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — The 17th flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on Dec. 5 pushed the total flight time past the 30-minute mark. The 117-second sortie brought history’s first aircraft to operate from the surface of another world closer to its original airfield, “Wright Brothers Field,” where it will await the arrival of the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover, currently exploring “South Séítah” region of Mars’ Jezero Crater.

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NASA Begins Testing Robotics to Bring First Samples Back From Mars

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Engineers at NASA’s JPL dropped this prototype to learn how a future Sample Return Lander could safely touch down on Mars as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign to bring Martian samples back to Earth for closer study. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Engineers are developing the crucial hardware needed for a series of daring space missions that will be carried out in the coming decade.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — Testing has already begun on what would be the most  sophisticated endeavor ever attempted at the Red Planet: bringing rock and sediment samples from Mars to Earth for closer study.

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Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Flight 17 – Discovering Limits

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Topography Between Mars Helicopter and Rover for Flight 17: In this annotated image, Ingenuity’s flight path is depicted in yellow. Perseverance’s location is indicated in the upper left, with the blue line depicting its line of sight to the helicopter’s Flight 17 landing spot. The topographic map below it indicates the altitude of surface features between the rover and helicopter. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

by Teddy Tzanetos
Ingenuity Team Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

December 9, 2021, Update: 

On Wednesday (Sol 285 in Perseverance’s mission on Mars) the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter relayed additional information on its status. The limited data that was received indicates power aboard the rotorcraft is excellent, which suggests it is in an upright stance, allowing its solar array to efficiently power its six lithium-ion batteries. However, the same line-of-sight issues the team believes impeded communications at the end of Flight 17 still prevented the majority of data packets (including imagery from the flight) to be relayed back to the rover – and then to Earth. The next opportunity for a data transfer is expected to occur sometime within the next several days.

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NASA’s Perseverance Captures Challenging Flight by Mars Helicopter

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Video from the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captures a closeup view of the 13th flight of the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, on Sept. 4, 2021. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

Recently downlinked imagery of a September flight has allowed the rover imaging team to put together a video of rotorcraft performing to near-perfection.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — Video footage from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s 13th flight on Sept. 4 provides the most detailed look yet of the rotorcraft in action.

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Hear Sounds From Mars Captured by NASA’s Perseverance Rover

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This illustration of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover indicates the location of its two microphones. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Two microphones aboard the six-wheeled spacecraft add a new dimension to the way scientists and engineers explore the Red Planet.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — Thanks to two microphones aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover, the mission has recorded nearly five hours of Martian wind gusts, rover wheels crunching over gravel, and motors whirring as the spacecraft moves its arm. These sounds allow scientists and engineers to experience the Red Planet in new ways – and everyone is invited to listen in.

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NASA’s Perseverance Sheds More Light on Jezero Crater’s Watery Past

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The escarpment the science team refers to as “Scarp a” is seen in this image captured by Perseverance rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument on Apr. 17, 2021. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

Pictures from NASA’s latest six-wheeler on the Red Planet suggest the area’s history experienced significant flooding events.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — A new paper from the science team of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover details how the hydrological cycle of the now-dry lake at Jezero Crater is more complicated and intriguing than originally thought. The findings are based on detailed imaging the rover provided of long, steep slopes called escarpments, or scarps in the delta, which formed from sediment accumulating at the mouth of an ancient river that long ago fed the crater’s lake. 

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Flying on Mars Is Getting Harder and Harder

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Mars Helicopter Sol 193 – Navigation Camera: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image using its navigation camera during its 13th flight on Sep. 5, 2021 (Sol 193 of the Perseverance rover mission) at the local mean solar time of 12:06:30. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Written by Håvard Grip
Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Chief Pilot
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

In the months since we flew for the first time, we have learned a great deal about operating a helicopter on Mars. We have explored Ingenuity’s strengths and limitations in detail, leveraging the former and working around the latter to operationalize it as a highly capable reconnaissance platform.

With the benefit of the knowledge acquired, conducting flights on Mars has in most ways become easier than it was at the outset. But in one important way it is actually getting more difficult every day: I’m talking about the atmospheric density, which was already extremely low and is now dropping further due to seasonal variations on Mars.

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Collects Puzzle Pieces of Mars’ History

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Two holes are visible in the rock, nicknamed “Rochette,” from which NASA’s Perseverance rover obtained its first core samples. The rover drilled the hole on the left, called “Montagnac,” Sept. 7, and the hole on the right, known as “Montdenier,” Sept. 1. Below it is a round spot the rover abraded. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover successfully collected its first pair of rock samples, and scientists already are gaining new insights into the region. After collecting its first sample, named “Montdenier,” Sept. 6, the team collected a second, “Montagnac,” from the same rock Sept. 8.

Analysis of the rocks from which the Montdenier and Montagnac samples were taken and from the rover’s previous sampling attempt may help the science team piece together the timeline of the area’s past, which was marked by volcanic activity and periods of persistent water.

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Collects First Mars Rock Sample

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This sealed titanium sample tube contains Perseverance’s first cored sample of Mars rock. The rover’s Sampling and Caching System Camera (known as CacheCam) captured this image. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA’s Perseverance rover today completed the collection of the first sample of Martian rock, a core from Jezero Crater slightly thicker than a pencil. Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California received data that confirmed the historic milestone.

The core is now enclosed in an airtight titanium sample tube, making it available for retrieval in the future. Through the Mars Sample Return campaign, NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are planning a series of future missions to return the rover’s sample tubes to Earth for closer study. These samples would be the first set of scientifically identified and selected materials returned to our planet from another.  

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Successfully Cores Its First Rock

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This Mastcam-Z image shows a sample of Mars rock inside the sample tube on Sept. 1, 2021 (the 190th sol, or Martian day, of the mission), shortly after the coring operation. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — Perseverance will obtain additional imagery of the sample tube before potentially completing the process of collecting its first scientifically-selected Mars sample.

Data received late Sept. 1 from NASA’s Perseverance rover indicate the team has achieved its goal of successfully coring a Mars rock. The initial images downlinked after the historic event show an intact sample present in the tube after coring. However, additional images taken after the arm completed sample acquisition were inconclusive due to poor sunlight conditions. Another round of images with better lighting will be taken before the sample processing continues.

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Assessing Perseverance’s First Sample Attempt

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The drill hole from Perseverance’s first sample-collection attempt can be seen, along with the shadow of the rover, in the left image taken by one of the rover’s navigation cameras. The right image is a composite image of Perseverance’s first borehole on Mars was generated using multiple images taken by the rover’s WATSON imager. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

Written by Louise Jandura
Chief Engineer for Sampling & Caching at NASA/JPL

PASADENA, Calif. — After the commands for sol 164 were sent for the first sample acquisition and processing on the target Roubion, it was time to take a few hours off and wait for the result. More than 90 engineers and scientists who had worked years preparing for this moment gathered online at 2 am PDT on Friday, August 6 to wait together for the first data from the coring operation. This data verified that the Corer had achieved the full commanded depth (7 centimeters) and we saw the image of the hole on Mars surrounded by the cuttings pile (material produced around the borehole during coring). So far, so good we thought as we signed off to try and get a few more hours of sleep before the next set of data arrived about 6 hours later.

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Perseverance Comes Up Empty in First Rock Sample Attempt

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This image taken by one the hazard cameras aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover on Aug. 6, 2021, shows the hole drilled in what the rover’s science team calls a “paver rock” in preparation for the mission’s first attempt to collect a sample from Mars. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — Data sent to Earth by NASA’s Perseverance rover after its first attempt to collect a rock sample on Mars and seal it in a sample tube indicate that no rock was collected during the initial sampling activity.

The rover carries 43 titanium sample tubes, and is exploring Jezero Crater, where it will be gathering samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) for future analysis on Earth.

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NASA Perseverance Mars Rover to Acquire First Sample

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Perseverance’s First Road Trip: This annotated image of Jezero Crater depicts the routes for Perseverance’s first science campaign (yellow hash marks) as well as its second (light-yellow hash marks). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA is making final preparations for its Perseverance Mars rover to collect its first-ever sample of Martian rock, which future planned missions will transport to Earth. The six-wheeled geologist is searching for a scientifically interesting target in a part of Jezero Crater called the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough.”

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NASA to Brief Early Science from Perseverance Mars Rover

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Perseverance’s First Road Trip: This annotated image of Jezero Crater depicts the routes for Perseverance’s first science campaign (yellow hash marks) as well as its second (light-yellow hash marks). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA will hold a virtual media briefing at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday, July 21, to discuss early science results from the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover and its preparations to collect the first-ever Martian samples for planned return to Earth.

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Mars Flight 9 Was a Nail-Biter, but Ingenuity Came Through With Flying Colors

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NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this image overlooking the “Séítah” region using its navigation camera. The agency’s Ingenuity helicopter flew over this region during its ninth flight, on July 5. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Written by Håvard F. Grip, Ingenuity Chief Pilot, and Ken Williford, Perseverance Deputy Project Scientist

PASADENA, Calif. — It has been a week of heightened apprehension on the Mars Helicopter team as we prepared a major flight challenge for Ingenuity. We uplinked instructions for the flight, which occurred Monday, July 5 at 2:03 am PT, and waited nervously for results to arrive from Mars later that morning. The mood in the ground control room was jubilant when we learned that Ingenuity was alive and well after completing a journey spanning 2,051 feet (625 meters) of challenging terrain.

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