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The record-breaking 25th flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took place on April 8, and a black-and-white navigation camera aboard the helicopter captured stunning video of the accomplishment.
As stated, it was the longest and quickest flight that a Mars rotorcraft has ever completed to this point, covering a distance of 704 meters at a speed of 5.5 meters per second.
“For our record-breaking flight, Ingenuity’s downward-looking navigation camera provided us with a breathtaking sense of what it would feel like gliding 33 feet above the surface of Mars at 12 miles per hour,” said Ingenuity team lead Teddy Tzanetos of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Furthermore, the statement says that “the first frame of the video clip begins about one second into the flight. After reaching an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters), the helicopter heads southwest, accelerating to its maximum speed in less than three seconds. The rotorcraft first flies over a group of sand ripples then, about halfway through the video, several rock fields.
Finally, relatively flat and featureless terrain appears below, providing a good landing spot. The video of the 161.3-second flight was speeded up approximately five times, reducing it to less than 35 seconds”
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