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.
Not as easy to get there, as it may appear at a first glance. Lots of loose regolith. Can the rover afford to say "we're going to cross that bridge when we get there"?
Where's that bridge? 🙃 😀
Processed, rotated MCZ_LEFT, FL: 110mm
looking W (276°) from RMC 51.2794
Sol 1112, LMST: 12:22:51
The image shows the location of Bright Angel, a light colored rock formation at the base of the ancient Neretva Vallis riverbank, where #Ingenuity's team said they planned to meet with #Perseverance, had its grounding not occurred. It is very possible that the rover will visit that area in the near future.
Processed, NAVCAM_RIGHT mosaic
looking W (270°) from RMC 51.2794
Sol 1110, LMST: 13:17:18
#Perseverance moved another ~40m to SW to RMC 51.2390, inching closer to the area where it will again have visibility to #Ingenuity (green on the map). The path shown is a guess.
EDIT: Updated map. New images coming in show that the rover moved further south to avoid some difficult to drive through terrain.
This map shows where along the edge of the ancient riverbank to expect #Ingenuity to be visible again by #Perseverance's masthead cameras, NAVCAM, MCZ and SUPERCAM. Dark areas have no visibility to the #MarsHelicopter.
The latest official traverse shows the rover making a number of zigzags on seemingly leveled ground, which might suggest that the recent path has been through loose regolith. If that's the case, then my prediction above may not be a good/easy way to the west along the edge of the plateau.
When looking east from Neretva Vallis, the lower slopes of Jezero Mons were previously visible in the distance; but not any more. The haze now seems impenetrable. Colors, too, have changed.
Map follows.
Processed MCZ_RIGHT, FL: 110mm
looking E (99°) from RMC 51.0000
Sol 1085, LMST: 10:29:40
New ~20m drive and new location for #Perseverance on Sol 1066, at RMC 50.1534. #Ingenuity is still in sight (light colored areas have visibility to the #MarsHelicopter).
Map drawn using QGIS with data from #MMGIS and imagery from #USGS and #HiRISE
Finally on Sol 1063 #Perseverance did the right thing and backed off 23m to an area where it (most probably) has line-of-site to #Ingenuity, so more images of the #MarsHelicopter can be captured, especially images with its SUPERCAM telescope.
The previous location where Perseverance captured images of the Ingenuity is shown with a green rover.
@stim3on
Maybe they needed these MCZ images to verify Ingenuity's location, but AFAICT, the #MMGIS localization was spot on. I think they'll use SUPERCAM a little further down the road, and if they can synchronize Ingenuity wiggling its blades with Supercam capturing images, then we'll get our SUPERCAM movie :-)
Sol 1049 noon finds #Perseverance 50 m WNW from its previous location, now at RMC 50.0524, still about 70m away from a large area with line-of-site to #Ingenuity's retirement place. There may be more driving during this sol though.
#Perseverance is training its telescope, SUPERCAM, on distant rocks, probably rehearsing the long picture shots it may try to capture of #Ingenuity, in the coming sols.
Map follows.
Processed SUPERCAM_RMI
looking NNE (19°) from RMC 49.5338
Sol 1047, LMST: 10:53:05
Another sol, another drive for #Perseverance. The rover is approaching the northern edge of the rocky Margin Unit, getting closer to where #Ingenuity is located after its eventful #Flight72, but it still has no line-of-sight to the #MarsHelicopter. It may be in a better position for a first look in a sol or two, as seen in the visibility plot below.
The new location doesn't seem to be much different wrt UHF communications with #Ingenuity, maybe a tad less bad, but definitely not good, AFAICT by this simplistic radiocoverage approximation. So I wouldn't expect #MarsHelicopter images to flood the dowlink, unless #Perseverance drives further into that beam of, um, radio clearness extending to the west and south of its current location.
Images from #Ingenuity's #Flight70 have started pouring in. This one shows the area where the #MarsHelicopter did an emergency landing during #Flight71, and a posible location for that, guessed from the laconic announcement of JPL on X.
Map follows.
Processed HELI_RTE image captured from RMC 70.0001/4
Sol 1009, LMST: 10:15:09
The map shows the approximate location of the #MarsHelicopter when the image above was captured. It appears that #Flight70 wasn't as straight as shown in the (prelimilary?) official localization (solid orange), but veered to the right and went a little farther, as usual,to find a suitable place to land.
Here is something that looks like one of those thermal blanket fragments from the #SkyCrane which brought #Perseverance onto the Martian surface and then rocketed away and crashed about 670m NW of the Octavia E. Butler landing site.
Only... that crash site is now about 6.2km ESE of #Perseverance
Animated zoom. Map follows.
NAVCAM_RIGHT
looking W (270°) from RMC 48.3714
Sol 1018, LMST: 14:54:00
Map showing location and distance of #Perseverance from the crash site of the #SkyCrane . Pink and maroon markers are other fragments or marks from the crash.