Ingenuity Undertook Its 8th Flight on Red Planet
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Why in news?
- Most recent flight was made by Ingenuity to Mars was on June 21, 2021.
- During the flight, Ingenuity remained aloft for 77.4 seconds.
- It flew 525 feet and landed about 440 feet away from Perseverance rover.
- Ingenuity was originally designed to fly only five times.
- But its steady successes made agency to extend its mission and experiment with more ambitious flights.
What is Ingenuity?
- Ingenuity is a small robotic helicopter which is operating on Mars under NASA’s Mars 2020 mission.
- It successfully completed first powered controlled flight by an aircraft on a planet besides Earth on April 19, 2021.
- As of June 22, it has successfully completed eight flights.
- A solar-charged battery-powered coaxial drone rotorcraft is serving as a technology and operations demonstration which will help in flying probes on future missions to Mars.
- Ingenuity was built by Jet Propulsion Laboratory QPL) of NASA.
- It travelled to Mars attached to underside of Perseverance rover.
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