Ingenuity hasn’t flown since Flight 29 on June 11, so the team has been running a few checks to make sure everything is still working as required. These included a low-speed spin of the helicopter’s rotors on August 6 and a high-speed spin on August 15. tests looked good. So it’s on to the next flight, as described by Ingenuity team leader Teddy Tzanetos in a blog post: “This 30th flight will be a short hop – checking the health of our system after surviving 101 winter sol , will collect lander delivery data in support of NASA’s Mars Sample Return Mission and potentially clean up dust that has settled on our solar panel from Flight 29.” Ingenuity at D Airport: This image of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars lander was taken by the Perseverance rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument on June 15, 2021, the mission’s 114th Martian day, or sol. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS On Flight 30, Ingenuity will be in the air for about 30 seconds, climbing to an altitude of 16.5 feet and making a lateral trip of just 7 feet before landing. This is because the purpose of the flight is more to check if the helicopter can land accurately than to actually go anywhere. Once this is confirmed, the helicopter can return to longer flights, such as heading along the Jezero delta, where the Rover Perseverance is currently exploring. “We plan to continue our course towards the river delta in the coming weeks while the environment (and thus the daily recoverable battery charge) continues to improve,” Janetos writes. “Higher battery states of charge will lead to longer flights, and eventually Ingenuity will be able to power its internal heaters during the night, which will prevent its electronics from freezing in the Martian cold every night.”
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