NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recorded this picture of tracks made by the Perseverance rover throughout its ninth flight, on July 5. A part of the helicopters landing gear can be seen at top. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Resourcefulnesss ninth flight supplied images that will assist the Perseverance rover team develop its science plan moving forward.
Images snapped on July 5 by NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on its enthusiastic ninth flight have actually used researchers and engineers dealing with the firms Perseverance Mars rover an unprecedented opportunity to hunt out the roadway ahead. Resourcefulness offered new insight into where different rock layers start and end, each layer serving as a time pill for how conditions in the ancient climate changed at this location. The flight likewise revealed barriers the rover may need to drive around as it checks out Jezero Crater.
During the flight– designed to test the helicopters capability to serve as an aerial scout — Ingenuity soared over a dune field nicknamed “Séítah.” Determination is making a detour south around those dunes, which would be too dangerous for the six-wheeled rover to attempt crossing.

NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recorded this image of tracks made by the Perseverance rover throughout its ninth flight, on July 5. The flight also revealed challenges the rover might have to drive around as it explores Jezero Crater.
Researchers hope to check out “Raised Ridges” with the Perseverance rover in the future. While the companys Perseverance Mars cant run the risk of getting stuck in this sand, researchers are still able to learn about this area by studying it from Ingenuitys images.” The helicopter is an exceptionally important asset for rover preparation since it provides high-resolution imagery of the terrain we want to drive through,” stated Toupet.

This annotated picture of Jezero Crater portrays the routes for Perseverances first science campaign (yellow hash marks) as well as its 2nd (light-yellow hash marks). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
The color images from Ingenuity, drawn from a height of around 33 feet (10 meters), offer the rover team much greater detail than they receive from the orbiter images (such as the one above) they normally utilize for route planning. While a camera like HiRISE (the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) aboard NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can resolve rocks about 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter, missions usually rely on rover images to see smaller sized rocks or surface functions.
” Once a rover gets close enough to an area, we get ground-scale images that we can compare to orbital images,” said Perseverance Deputy Project Scientist Ken Williford of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “With Ingenuity, we now have this intermediate-scale images that well fills the gap in resolution.”
Below are a few of Ingenuitys images, which completed the long journey back to Earth on July 8.
Raised Ridges
Ingenuity (its shadow is noticeable at the bottom of this image) used a high-resolution glance of rock functions nicknamed “Raised Ridges.” They belong to a fracture system, which typically serve as paths for fluid to stream underground.
NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter spotted this place, nicknamed “Raised Ridges,” during its ninth flight, on July 5. Scientists wish to visit “Raised Ridges” with the Perseverance rover in the future. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Here in Jezero Crater, a lake existed billions of years ago. Spying the ridges in images from Mars orbiters, scientists have actually questioned whether water might have streamed through these fractures eventually, dissolving minerals that might assist feed ancient microbial colonies. That would make them a prime location to try to find indications of ancient life– and possibly to drill a sample.
The samples Perseverance takes will become transferred on Mars for a future objective that would take them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
” Our present plan is to visit Raised Ridges and investigate it close up,” Williford said. “The helicopters images are without a doubt much better in resolution than the orbital ones we were using. Studying these will permit us to guarantee that going to these ridges is crucial to the group.”
Dunes
Dune like the ones in this image keep rover drivers like JPLs Olivier Toupet awake during the night: Knee- or waist-high, they could easily cause the two-ton rover to get stuck. After landing in February, Perseverance researchers asked whether it was possible to make a beeline across this terrain; Toupets response was a tough no.
NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flew over this dune field in an area of Jezero Crater nicknamed “Séítah” during its ninth flight, on July 5, 2021. A portion of the helicopters landing gear can be seen at top left. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
” Sand is a big issue,” stated Toupet, who leads the team of movement specialists that plans Perseverances drives. “If we drive downhill into a dune, we might embed ourselves into it and not be able to return out.”
Toupet is likewise the lead for Perseverances freshly tested AutoNav feature, which uses expert system algorithms to drive the rover autonomously over higher ranges than could be accomplished otherwise. While great at avoiding rocks and other risks, AutoNav cant find sand, so human motorists still need to specify “keep-out zones” around locations that might allure the rover.
Bedrock
Without Ingenuity, visible in silhouette at the bottom of this next image, Perseverances scientists would never get to see this area of Séítah so plainly: Its too sandy for Perseverance to go to. The special view offers enough information to examine these rocks and get a much better understanding of this location of Jezero Crater.
NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flew over these sand dunes and rocks during its ninth flight, on July 5, 2021. While the agencys Perseverance Mars cant run the risk of getting stuck in this sand, scientists are still able to find out about this area by studying it from Ingenuitys images. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
As the rover works its way around the dune field, it may make what the group calls a “toe dip” into some clinically compelling areas with interesting bedrock. While Toupet and his team would not try a toe dip here, the current images from Ingenuity will enable them to prepare possible toe-dip paths in other areas along the route of Perseverances very first science campaign.
” The helicopter is a very valuable possession for rover planning because it provides high-resolution images of the terrain we desire to drive through,” stated Toupet. “We can much better examine the size of the dunes and where bedrock is poking out. Thats fantastic information for us; it assists determine which areas may be traversable by the rover and whether particular high-value science targets are reachable.”
More About the Mission
A crucial objective for Perseverances objective on Mars is astrobiology, including the look for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will identify the planets geology and past climate, lead the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to gather and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA objectives, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send out spacecraft to Mars to gather these sealed samples from the surface area and return them to Earth for thorough analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission becomes part of NASAs Moon to Mars exploration method, that includes Artemis objectives to the Moon that will assist prepare for human expedition of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, developed and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages the technology demonstration job for NASA Headquarters. NASAs Ames Research Center in Californias Silicon Valley, and NASAs Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, offered considerable flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuitys development.
JPL manages the MRO objective for NASAs Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The University of Arizona, in Tucson, runs HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado.