MarshallCopter landing confirmed! NASA’s diligent 293 million miles (471 million kilometers) journey ended with the last 4 inches (10 centimeters) of the rover’s abdomen falling to the surface of Mars today. The next milestone? Survive the night. “The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a laboratory that manages robotic passengers, is also attached to the tweet, a photo taken from the diligent view of the helicopter on the surface of Mars.
Previous photos show how the helicopter is attached to the bottom of the robot. Do not release until the device is fully charged. After landing, the ingenuity must heat the interior with its own battery so that vital components are protected from the extreme cold. After all, according to the lab, Rick has to survive the night-time surface temperature (-90 degrees Celsius) independently.
After landing, the robot pulls away from the jeep helicopter, at which point ingenuity could deploy a solar panel, said Bob Balaram, chief engineer of the Mars helicopter project, in a blog post. “Ingenuity eagerly awaits the news coming from the helicopter,” Balaram said. “Did it survive the night? Does the solar panel work as expected? The panel will check the temperature and battery performance in the coming days. If all goes well, the next steps: Motors and sensors that split the plates and test everything.”
NASA had earlier announced that the aircraft would make its first test flight on April 11. The first flight should be simple: the ingenuity rises vertically to a height of three meters, remains there for thirty seconds, causes a rotation around itself, and then descends to the surface of Mars.
The diligence landed successfully on February 18 in the Jesero abyss.
