The western face of the ripple where #Ingenuity landed in its final flight 72 looked very steep in the other images, and indeed, the rover was tilted 10.9° when it captured these images. So, here is one corrected to horizontal, also showing markings relative to #TheMarsHelicopter..
Processed and leveled MCZ_RIGHT, FL: 110mm
looking from RMC 52.0000
Sol 1130, LMST: 16:19:13
I believe we can now reconstruct the last moments of #Ingenuity's #Flight72 with some certainty. The actual trajectory may be a little more complicated, e.g. turning while hopping, but we'll never know.
EDIT: there is a new theory about Flight 71, see comments.
Animation
Processed MCZ_RIGHT, FL: 110mm
looking NNE (16°) from RMC 52.0000
Sol 1130, LMST: 16:19:24
Ingenuity’s mission ended after the helicopter experienced a hard landing on its last flight, significantly damaging its rotor blades. Image taken by Perseverance on Feb. 24.
Drive on Sol 1124 to site 51.5030. Looks like a nice location for SuperCam to take a peep at the west side of the ripple where Ingenuity is collecting data.
Maybe one of our last images of #Ingenuity, if one can call those few pixels an "image" of the #MarsHelicopter. There haven't been any SUPERCAM images from this new angle so far, so such wide FOV NAVCAM images is all that we have.
Quick NAVCAM_LEFT mosaic
looking from RMC 51.4692
Sol 1123, LMST: 11:16:05
"[T]he helicopter is ready for its final act: to serve as a stationary testbed, collecting data that could benefit future explorers of the Red Plan
[…]
The team has calculated Ingenuity’s memory could potentially hold about 20 years’ worth of daily data."
It appears as if #Perseverance wants to change route away from the riverbank edge and tries to find a clear path for its journey to Jezero's rim, in which case the Bright Angel target may have been abandoned.
The green dashed line shows a possible route, after tosol's new drive to RMC 51.4692. The new path (double white stitch) is a guess.
#Ingenuity may be marginally visible again, but will disappear for a long time if the green route is to be followed.
#Ingenuity's location is indeed visible, especially the western side of the ripple where apparently it first touched down, though the helicopter itself is too small to be discernible in a NAVCAM image.
Processed, enlarged, cropped NAVCAM_LEFT
looking from RMC 51.4692
Sol 1122, LMST: 14:50:56
#Perseverance had to clear a low mound SW of it so that it could continue on its painstaking westward path. Tosol's drive brought it to RMC 51.4014, where it stopped, not surprisingly, at a low regolith ripple. #Ingenuity is visible.
Processed, rotated, cropped REAR_HAZCAM_RIGHT
looking from RMC 51.4014
Sol 1118, LMST: 12:23:09
New location RMC 51.3688 on Sol 1117. #Perseverance made up its mind and … followed my predicted route 🤓 😜 around the low rocky mound that lies to the southwest. #Ingenuity should be visible from this new location.
Processed, undistorted, leveled NAVCAM_LEFT
looking W (272°) from RMC 51.3688
Sol 1117, LMST: 13:45:18
#Ingenuity is indeed visible from the new location at RMC 51.3688. Especially the marks from its first bounce upon landing of #Flight72 should now be visible from a very favorable new angle, although of course not in this wide angle NAVCAM image.
Processed, leveled NAVCAM_RIGHT
looking NNE (24°) from RMC 51.3354
Sol 1116, LMST: 15:58:19
The #Perseverance rover captured this scenic panorama a week ago on Sol 999 with the left Navcam.
In front of the rover lies Neretva Vallis and the Jezero Crater Rim where the mission is heading to in the future.
Also visible in the panorama, but very tiny, is the #Ingenuity Mars helicopter which had its fateful last flight a few months ago.
It rests on the crest of a sand ripple now dubbed Valinor Hills.
I reprocessed the Sol 1110 Ingenuity image with AI-upscaling to improve visual fidelity.
As @65dBnoise already noted, there seems to be disturbed sand on the other side of the sand ripple. We are still hoping for SuperCam images of the area to get a better understanding of what happened. https://mastodon.social/@65dBnoise/112219066878951407
@stim3on
Great details!
Here is a partially white balanced and contrast enhanced copy, helping bring out more details to facilitate my forensics analysis (thread+imgs):
It appears #Ingenuity bounced twice before stopping.
Details:
• Bounce 1: The fact that the eastern (right) marks, i.e. those up on the ripple, appear to be deeper probably means that the heli was not landing vertically, but its velocity had a horizontal W→E component. After hitting the ground hard, half a rotor broke off
On the move again, #Perseverance covered another 50m to the west, and stopped as usual amidst a regolith ripple. #Ingenuity should be marginally visible from this new location.
On Sol 1115 #Perseverance moved yet again to a new location, RMC 51.3152, 50m down the predicted path, and stopped again at the middle of a regolith ripple. It's now ~400m S of #Ingenuity which is hidden from view. No SUPERCAM image of the #MarsHelicopter has been downlinked yet.
Processed, undistorted, leveled NAVCAM_RIGHT mosaic
looking NNW (327°) from RMC 51.3152
Sol 1115, LMST: 13:11:43
New 30m drive and new location for #Perseverance on Sol 1114, RMC 51.2990, the closest so far to #Ingenuity, just 360m south of it, and very close to the edge of the south Neretva Vallis riverbank.
There is very little known about #Flight71, the one that preceded the final, both in details about the flight itself but also about its troublesome landing and its exact location. #Ingenuity's flight log does not yet list distances. AFAICT it has been assumed to be ~10m east of landing 72. Images that just arrived show nothing visible in that area, though they show what seems to be a recent disturbance ~50m ENE. More images are obviously needed 2b sure.
As anticipated, there (lower center left) is #Ingenuity enjoying the sunshine in Neretva Vallis, as captured by the MCZ camera, yestersol, 2 minutes after noon.
Processed MCZ_RIGHT, FL: 110mm
looking from RMC 51.2578
Sol 1110, LMST: 12:02:00