Perseverance turns to Helicopter Ingenuity after its first autonomous night on Mars

On April 4, 2021 NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover sent images of Helicopter Ingenuity after its first autonomous night on Mars. Helicopter was successfully dropped to planet’s surface by Perseverance Rover on April 3. Ingenuity is ready to make first flight at Helipad but something caused the rover to turn to Helicopter. As we know Ingenuity can't afford to keep the temperature of its interior at a "balmy" 45F -that takes too much precious energy from the battery. Instead, when it wakes up on the surface after being dropped, it sets its thermostat to about 5F or lower. Then it's off to survive the first night on its own! The team is going to check the temperatures and the battery recharge performance over the next couple of days. If it all looks good, then it's onto the next steps: unlocking the rotor blades, and testing out all the motors and sensors. MOST REASONABLE answer for the question why Perseverance turned to Helicopter for different angle – to check the temperature of Ingenuity’s solar panels and other components.

Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Source for NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity page: https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/

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