The US aviation agency posted new images on Twitter of the six-wheeled robot during its fourth Ingenuity flight on April 30th, this time accompanied by a sound. The three-minute video begins with winds blowing over Jizero Crater, as they descend on February 18th to find traces of past microbiological life.
However, the helicopter could not be heard very well, as Perseverance snapped the photo from about 80 meters away. In addition, the thin, windy atmosphere on Mars provides a muffled sound. But even the little that can be heard “is a gold mine for a better understanding of the Martian atmosphere,” say the scientists.
Bara’a (Ibdaa), which weighed 1.8 kilograms, also successfully completed its fifth flight on Friday. It was the first one-way flight of a small helicopter, and thus did not return to the starting point.
For the Mars helicopter, which was on a NASA rover, the conditions on Mars are extreme. The rotors would have to do more than 2,500 revolutions per minute through the loosened atmosphere, roughly 1 percent of that on the ground, for altitude off the ground. Additionally, solar energy is lower and batteries suffer from low temperatures at night, as the mercury can drop to minus 90 degrees.
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