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Perseverance

and

Ingenuity

are a full-fledged robotic team.

While

Ingenuity

Last Monday, his partner

Perseveranc

e -

who this week has managed to obtain oxygen for the first time on Mars

- was

making the first flight of a helicopter off Earth last Monday

-

recording the feat from about 64 meters away.

A couple of days later, the NASA team posted the full video of that Martian flight on social media, which lasted 39.1 seconds in total.

The second test of this 1.8 kilogram drone-like device is scheduled for Thursday.

According to NASA, it will last 50 seconds, rise five meters and tilt five degrees to move laterally two meters.

In order to rise up into the Martian atmosphere, the small helicopter rotates its rotors at about 2,400 revolutions per minute. As can be seen in the video during takeoff and descent, it generated a large amount of dust, which is one of the main characteristics of the Martian environment and also one of the great enemies of technological teams exploring the red planet. According to the mission engineers, these types of videos help them "understand the Martian wind and how dust travels through the Martian atmosphere."

During the historic flight,

Ingenuity

hovered at a height of three meters, an altitude at which it remained stable for 30 seconds.

The following tests will be progressively more complex until verifying if this type of helicopter is viable to incorporate in future Martian missions.

They are expected to be able to quickly explore remote areas or carry small loads from one place to another.

Perseverance produces oxygen

The video was recorded with the Mastcam-Z instrument camera of the Perseverance rover, which arrived at Mars on February 18 with a mission to find evidence of past life on Mars and help prepare for a future manned mission.

Perseverance rover succeeds in extracting oxygen from Mars for the first time

To that end, on Tuesday he obtained oxygen for the first time thanks to his MOXIE instrument, designed to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.

"Oxygen is not just for breathing. Rocket propellant fuel depends on oxygen and future explorers will have to produce their fuel on Mars for the return flight," explained Jim Reuter, one of those responsible for the mission.

The MOXIE instrument for obtaining oxygen, at NASA's JPL

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