cheese!

Perseverance has taken a beautiful photo showing both the proud rover itself and the helicopter. The epic selfie can be liked below. The picture represents a very important moment. Because it won’t be long before Marshelikopter Ingenuity soars in the sky.

A selfie of perseverance and creativity. Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

Photo captured two days ago with the help of the WATSON camera (Wide angle topographic sensor for electronic operations and engineering) At the end of the rover’s robotic arm. Perseverance in the helicopter on day 46 of the mission. While the image may be slightly distorted, the rover is about four meters away from Ingenuity, which He’s been living his life completely independently since last weekend. Until recently, the helicopter was still safe and intact in the “belly” of the motor vehicle. But a few days ago, the helicopter detached and fell – from a height of about four inches – onto the red planet.

How do perseverance take a selfie?
You might be wondering how perseverance managed to take a selfie. Because you don’t see the robot arm in the picture. It’s easy to explain that we don’t see that arm in the photo. The selfie is basically a mosaic made up of 62 separate photos. Some of these pictures were taken while persistently looking at the helicopter, while others were taken while the rover was transforming into a WATSON camera. After that, it was decided to use (parts) of the images that did not contain the robot arm.

Important moment
As mentioned, the selfie isn’t just a cute shot. It is also a very important moment. Soon creativity will try to fly a little. Once the team is ready, persistence will provide final flight instructions from the control team to the helicopter. Then it’s time!

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one more time
When will creativity take off? This is not yet fully known. This is because it depends on several factors. For example, researchers want to get a good picture of the weather, so that a helicopter chooses airspace only under ideal weather conditions. In doing so, the team relies on data gathered from MEDA-Tool Perseverance on board, which measures, among other things, the speed and direction of the wind. Once everything is determined, the researchers will schedule an appointment. NASA has already cautiously hinted that the most promising test flight – if conditions on Mars permits – will take place around April 11th.

Although perseverance is the only spectator on site, we will also be able to enjoy it here on Earth. Perseverance will not only send the first batch of technical data after the flight, but it will also provide the images produced by the navigation cameras that the rover is equipped with. The creativity itself is also equipped with a camera and we hope it treats us to some lovely aerial photos in a few weeks as well. Based on this data, the team expects to be able to determine whether the first attempt to travel to Mars was successful and if there was another round in the barrel.