NASA’s Mars Helicopter Took a Photo of Its Rover Buddy While Flying

In the days since NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter made its first historic ascent on the surface of Mars, the pioneering aircraft has continued to push the limits of extraterrestrial flight. Ingenuity has another talent, too: photography.

Ingenuity has now flown three times, including a trip on Sunday in which it zoomed 50 meters downrange of its airfield, which is newly named after the Wright Brothers, at a top speed of two meters per second. The round trip covered the length of a football field, and the Martian aircraft also found the time to take some aerial images—including one of the nearby Perseverance rover on the ground.

I spy with my little eye…a rover.🧐
See if you can spot @NASAPersevere in this image taken by the #MarsHelicopter during its third flight on April 25, 2021. Ingenuity was flying at an altitude of 16 ft (5 m) and ~279 ft (~85 m) from the rover at the time. https://t.co/TNCdXWcKWE pic.twitter.com/krf1jBs3cY

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) April 28, 2021

Perseverance can be spotted in the top left of Ingenuity’s picture, which was taken with the helicopter’s color camera. Ingenuity is also equipped with a black-and-white navigational camera trained on the ground, which has captured surreal images of the shadow the copter casts on the Martian surface.

Go big or go home! The #MarsHelicopter successfully completed its 2nd flight, capturing this image with its black-and-white navigation camera. It also reached new milestones of a higher altitude, a longer hover and lateral flying. pic.twitter.com/F3lwcV9kH2

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) April 22, 2021

Perseverance is parked at a safe distance from the airfield, at a site called Van Zyl Overlook. In addition to starring in shots taken by Ingenuity, the rover has been recording its airborne partner’s flights with its Mastcam-Z instrument. The footage of the first ascent was notable for its sheer historic nature, but the latest video of the most recent third flight is the most exciting, as Ingenuity zips right out of the frame.

Ingenuity leads are now planning the copter’s fourth flight, which should take place sometime this week and is expected to cover more distance than previous trips. The fifth and final flight is expected to be the most audacious of them all, potentially covering a distance of several hundred meters across the surface of Mars.

“We do want to push it to the limit,” said  MiMi Aung, project manager for Ingenuity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, at an April 19 press briefing. “We’re going to go further, faster, definitely, especially towards the end of the experimental window. We will be pushing the envelope and really stretching and understanding how well we can fly.”