NASA's Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Preparing for Its First Flight in 2022: Where Is It Going Next?

Earth has just completed another revolution around the Sun, hence the New Year. That means the Mars 2020 Mission team in NASA is also looking forward to more milestones this 2022. Now the Ingenuity helicopter is preparing to take its first flight of the year, the 19th overall, which is predicted to be tougher due to the terrain where it is currently on.

The first rotorcraft on Mars has long surpassed its supposed five-flight lifespan and continues to function for the Mars 2020 Mission in the harsh conditions of the Jezero Crater.

(Photo : PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
A full scale model of the experimental Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which will be carried under the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, is displayed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on February 16, 2021 in Pasadena, California.

Mars Ingenuity's 19th Flight on Mars

The mission team members wrote in a blog post on Tuesday, January 4, that the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity helicopter's next Red Planet flight will be on Friday, January 7. They noted that this will be the rotorcraft's 19th flight overall, although the first one for 2022.

According to Space.com, Ingenuity will be covering 206 feet (63 meters) during its 100-second flight. It will take the vehicle out of the South Séítah, a rugged basin in Jezero Crater, over a ridge and onto the main plateau.

Ingenuity pilot Martin Cacan from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California wrote in the blog post that the flight is just a short one but a challenging start of the year due to its featureless sandy terrain where Ingenuity is sitting on.

The area was chosen due to the lack of rocks, which are needed to land safely. However, Cacan wrote, that the area was so devoid of rock that warning signals were activated during Flight 18 landing because there are insufficient features that the vision navigation can track. Due to this, they decided that fault protection parameters will be updated to mitigate premature landing in mid-ascent.

ALSO READ: NASA Thanks Ingenuity Helicopter For Its 'Important Milestone;' Here's Why

Ingenuity Has Been in Service to Perseverance Rover

Every flight of Ingenuity is considered a miracle, especially after the first one proved it is possible to operate a rotorcraft on Mars. Since then, its succeeding flights have been in service to Perseverance rover.

Flight 19's mission is to reach the Jezero river delta to help the Perseverance rover in its scientific discovery and path planning, SciTech Daily reported. Ingenuity's landing site for its first flight of the year is near the landing site of Flight 8, selected during Flight 9 using the rotorcraft's Return-To-Earth (RTE) camera.

Mars Mission this year is expected to be filled with exploration and scientific studies as the Perseverance rover continues to traverse the Red Planet and the Ingenuity plays as the scout in the air. Both of them landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, in which the rotorcraft has demonstrated remarkable feats after acing five technology-demonstrating flights to show aerial exploration is doable despite the planet's thin atmosphere.

According to CNet, team members are pushing its limit to scout Jezero Crater, which is believed to harbor a lake and river delta billions of years ago. They aim to check out the remnants o the delta and see if any signs of Mars life once existed.