NASA Extends Its Ingenuity's High-Flying Mission On Mars

NASA has decided to extend the Ingenuity's high-flying mission on the red plant to test the operational capabilities of its smart helicopter, which completed its first powered flight on Mars less than two weeks ago. Since then, the device has completed a total of four flights.

"NASA's Ingenuity helicopter will keep flying for an additional 30 days (at least), on an extended mission that will test the chopper's ability to be a "scout", according to reports released on April 30 by NASA.

According to an official statement on Sunday by Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters, he explained: "After assessing the Perseverance science strategies, there's room to expand the Ingenuity demonstration into a new phase."

On the other hand, MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said "For Ingenuity to now entering a new operational demonstration phase, our team has been extremely happy and proud."

"It's like Ingenuity is graduating from the test demo phase to, now, the new demo phase, where we can show that how rotorcraft can be used," he added.

The purpose of the Ingenuity helicopter is to examine rocks and soil found on the planet that could indicate if previous life existed there 3.5 billion years ago.

The mission will take two Earth years, which comes out to a single year on Mars, according to the global space agency.

On April 18, NASA revealed that the advanced Ingenuity helicopter is preparing for its historic and first-ever flight on Mars planet Monday if everything goes according to plan.

Notably, the $85 million Ingenuity helicopter arrived on the red planet aboard the Perseverance rover on Feb. 18 when it landed in a region known as Jezero Crater.