Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

The targeted landing zone for Ingenuity’s Flight 19 can be seen in this Return-To-Earth (RTE) camera image from Flight 9. The targeted landing spot is in the center of the image, just below the rover tracks.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Ingenuity rotorcraft is slated to take place no earlier than today, Friday, January 7.

Martin Cacan, Ingenuity Pilot at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reports the scout vehicle will fly out of the South Séítah basin, across the dividing ridge, and up onto the main plateau.

The precise landing target for Flight 19 is near the landing site of Flight 8.

Fault protection parameters

“While short, the flight has a challenging start due to featureless sandy terrain that the helicopter currently sits on,” Cacan explains. “Initially chosen for the lack of rocks to land safely, the area is actually so devoid of rock that warnings were reported during Flight 18 landing due to insufficient features to track in the vision navigation. As a result, fault protection parameters will be updated to mitigate the risk of a premature landing mid-ascent.”

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This 19^th flight is set to last about 100 seconds at a groundspeed of 2.2 mph (1 meter per second) and altitude of 33 feet (10 meters) while taking 9 new, high-resolution Return-To-Earth (RTE) images.

“The final act of the flight is to turn nearly 180 degrees to flip the RTE camera to a forward-facing orientation for future flights toward the river delta,” Cacan adds.