The circle is complete. After more than a year on the mission, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has found the wreckage of several components of its Perseverance rover, which crashed in the process of arriving on the Martian surface on February 18, 2021. In a blog note, the American agency published the photos obtained from this reunion.
Described as “the most documented landing in history”, the arrival of the rover had made it possible to equip the ground of Mars with a small helicopter called Ingenuity. Since then, his missions have multiplied and he has become the star of the networks for his spectacular flights and the underlying shots.
???? Ingenuity, a helicopter like no other. Humanity had never been able to take off a helicopter on Mars, where the atmosphere is much less dense than ours. For comparison, to be able to take off from the ground given enough lift, Ingenuity’s main rotor spins ten times faster than that of a land helicopter.
What are these debris?
The debris photographed this week is part of the boat that slowed down the vehicle as it approached the ground of the road planet. You can see the old parachute and the main capsule, in the form of a conical disc. Attached to it, the Perseverance rover was airlifted by a thruster to slow down the last few meters. Despite the speed on impact, the elements seem to have held up particularly well.
© NASA
Considered a “priority project” by the scientific community, the Perseverance mission has two missions: the first, which it has already completed, was to prove the presence of water on the surface of the planet in the past, and the presence at this time an environment conducive to the development of microorganisms. The second: to take samples of these past life clues.
Perseverance is part of a series of three missions which will culminate in the organization of a return of the samples to Earth. According to the latest news, this mission will not be organized before the next decade. Until then, another launcher will take off with new devices to recover Perseverance, which has been off for quite a while (it has a lifespan of 24 months).
