Tens of millions of miles away, an American-made helicopter is buzzing around the surface of Mars, and now earthlings can watch that autonomous aircraft in 3D.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab has released a video of its Ingenuity Mars helicopter lifting off the Martian surface, quickly zipping out of view and then returning to land near to where it launched from.
And if you’ve got 3D glasses — or want to make a pair — you can watch Ingenuity fly around as if you were hanging out on Mars. Watch NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Fly in 3D.
- “The April 25 flight brought with it several other firsts, with Ingenuity rising 16 feet (5 meters), then flying downrange 164 feet (50 meters),” NASA said of the video.
- “That was a record until Ingenuity traveled 873 feet (266 meters) on its fourth flight, on April 30. For its fifth flight, on May 7, Ingenuity completed its first one-way trip, traveling 423 feet (129 meters), then reaching an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters) above its new landing field,” said the space administration of Ingenuity’s recent travels.
- Ingenuity weighs 4 pounds, stands 19 inches tall and has a rotor span of 4 feet, according to a NASA fact sheet. The autonomous helicopter is controlled from Earth through the Perseverance rover.
From rover photos to 3D video
The video of Ingenuity flying around Mar’s surface is actually a series of photos taken by the zoomable camera on NASA’s Perseverance rover — the Mastcam-Z.
- A team of Jet Propulsion Lab scientists stitched the images together to create a video, and then “the frames of the video were reprojected to optimize viewing in an anaglyph, or an image seen in 3D when viewed with color-filtered glasses,” according to NASA.
- “The Mastcam-Z video capability was inherited from the Mars Science Laboratory MARDI (Mars Descent Imager) camera,” said Justin Maki — the JPL scientists that led the imaging team — in a statement. “To be reusing this capability on a new mission by acquiring 3D video of a helicopter flying above the surface of Mars is just spectacular.”
Short on 3D glasses or don’t have blue and red cellophane laying around your house? NASA also uploaded a 2D version of Ingenuity’s flight to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s YouTube page.