NASA's Ingenuity helicopter completes a sixth flight despite some 'unexpected motion'

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter has survived its sixth flight on the Red Planet, but not everyone went to plan, with some'unexpected motion' in the final few feet. This motion was from an'image processing issue' but the 4lb copter'muscled through' the final 213ft of its 703ft flight over the Martian surface, NASA JPL tweeted. The flight happened last week, on May 22, but NASA said it would be taking more time to review each flight before releasing data after the fifth flight was over, so information on it surviving the'wobble' weren't released until Thursday. Despite the issue the helicopter, currently in a new phase where it is helping Perseverance scout for locations, 'landed safely and is ready to fly again.' The latest trip was designed to expand the flight envelope and demonstrate aerial-imaging capabilities by taking stereo images of a region of interest to the west. Ingenuity climbed 33ft, moved 492ft southwest at 9 mph, travelled 49ft south while capturing images towards the west, before going another 164ft to its landing site.