After more than three years on Mars, the Ingenuity drone has sent its final message to Earth. As reported by the American space agency NASA, after a “long farewell” to the surprisingly durable device, on Tuesday, April 16, the control centre received the last set of data. Ingenuity will remain on Mars and continue to collect data “that may be useful to future explorers of the Red Planet.”
The drone-like drone landed on the Red Planet in February 2021 with the Perseverance rover and accompanied it as an “aerial reconnaissance vehicle” in search of signs of possible life on Mars. Perseverance is the most advanced rover NASA has ever sent to Mars. In April 2021, Ingenuity made its first flight. It was the first flight of such a device in the history of space missions.
At the beginning of the mission, the goal of the aircraft, which weighs only 1.8 kg, was to make 5 flights to Mars in 30 days. As a result, 72 flights took place in almost 3 years. In January, NASA reported that the drone had damaged “one or more” propeller blades and could no longer fly.
In general, the durability of the drone exceeded all expectations. It has withstood dust storms and freezing temperatures on Mars. The drone was crossing terrain with a lot of obstacles, it had a faulty sensor.
The solar heating system, designed to work in the spring, could not work in the winter, causing the on-board computer to freeze. However, engineers managed to develop new technological solutions already during the mission.
As for Perseverance, it studies Martian rocks from the point of view of geological processes, biosignatures and geological history of the planet. Among other things, these studies are intended to provide insight into possible life on Mars. In addition, the rover costing $2.5 billion should study the climate on the Red Planet. By the way, a little more than a year later, the rover came across its parachute, with which it landed.
Perseverance has already explored Lake Crater. Billions of years ago, it contained a lake fed by a river delta. Since it is well known that life requires water, NASA is now hoping to obtain interesting samples and perhaps even evidence of earlier life.
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