Evidently, during the one week delay to takeoff, #Flight68 was redesigned to be the same with flight 69, with a total length of around 704m (352m NE and back) instead of 828m that had been previously announced (which would be a new distance record if it happened), as seen in the official #MMGIS map.
It would seem as if #Ingenuity's team were testing different flight parameters with those flights. However, if the #MMGIS JSON metadata are final and not preliminary, they don't show much difference between the two flights (image).
Max speed and altitude appear to be the same for both flights. 🤔
It should be noted that flight metadata often change as more telemetry/images arrive.
It may be 1.1km away and not a clear line-of-sight to #Ingenuity, but it sure is open space and a beautiful scene of Neretva Vallis. Images from #Flight68 should now be easier to receive. That is, if the flight happened on Saturday, as planned.
Processed, undistorted, leveled, cropped NAVCAM_LEFT, looking WNW (293°) from RMC 47.4374
Sol 999, LMST: 14:37:12
Map showing the field-of-view of the RTE camera when #Ingenuity captured the image above. Drawn with #QGIS using data from #NASA's #MMGIS and imagery from #USGS, #HiRISE
Sol 997: #Perseverance moved to a new location, RMC 47.2396. The rover appears as if heading back to Jurabi Point, although the anticipated rock samples have not been acquired yet. The black dashed line shows a possible return path.
And here is where Barrabiddy is located, relative to #Perseverance. The map also shows the field-of-view of the MastcamZ camera with a 34mm focal length.
It appears #Perseverance has found its next target 23m further east and 1.5m higher, on that banded mound it was facing yestersol. It has already oriented itself to SW and increased the site number to 47, all signaling a possible sampling operation.
Map follows.
Looking SSW (196°) from RMC 47.0000
Sol 960, LMST: 16:18:09
I may be wrong, but it appears the #MarsHelicopter veered to the west quite a bit. Here is my estimate of its landing 64 location, based on the HELI_NAV image above.
Two other locations guessed earlier are marked in red.
The #MarsHelicopter is about 600m away and not visible by #Perseverance at its current location at RMC 46.0000. Despite that, it was able to send a color RTE image to the rover, so obviously the UHF radio link is workable, even without LOS.
The visibility plot below shows that Jurabi Point is visible from #Ingenuity's location, so the radio link should be expected to be even better, if/when the rover gets there.
The #MarsHelicopter flew #Flight63 sideways, or at least the last part of it, as evidenced by this image looking NNW, captured about 16m before it landed.
Map follows.
Image captured from RMC 63.0001/4
Sol 947, LMST: 10:37:17
#Ingenuity took off around 10:36 in the morning of Sol 947 for its 574m long #Flight63, and at 10:37:27 sent the image below, apparently incomplete.
The fact that the #MarsHelicopter now flies earlier in the morning means that the heli makes it through the night without browning out due to low battery charge.
Here comes #Ingenuity's #Flight62, tomorrow Thursday Oct 12, 2023. The #MarsHelicopter will fly out to Jurabi Point with a record speed of 10m/s and back to the same airfield where it will take off from.
New location for #Perseverance on Sol 932, even further into the "broken slab" area to the NW, which however doesn't seem to be difficult for the rover.