The Blue Angels, the U.S. Navyâs flight demonstration squadron, are celebrating their 75th anniversary season in 2021. The team was formed in 1946 and is the second oldest formal flying aerobatic team under the same name in the world.
The teamâs six demonstration pilots currently man the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets. It marks the first ânewâ aircraft added to the Blue Angels flight demonstration team since they adopted the legacy F/A-18C/Ds in 1986.
A total of 17 officers voluntarily serve with the Blue Angels. Each year, the team typically selects three tactical (fighter or fighter/attack) jet pilots, two support officers and one Marine Corps C-130 pilot to relieve departing members.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter lands with a soft bounce after its fifth flight on May 7, 2021. The images in this GIF were captured by the Mastcam-Z imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover.
May 12, 2021
After the zoomable dual-camera Mastcam-Z imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the third flight of the agency’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter on April 25, 2021, Justin Maki, an imaging scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, led the team that stitched the images into a video. The frames of the video were then reprojected to optimize viewing in an anaglyph, or an image seen in 3D when viewed with color-filtered glasses.
Arizona State University in Tempe leads the operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego.
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Seeing NASA s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Fly in 3D
Ingenuity Flies in 3D: After the Mastcam-Z imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover captured Ingenuity’s third flight on April 25, the frames of the video that was stitched together were then reprojected to optimize viewing in an anaglyph, or an image seen in 3D when seen through color-filtered glasses. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS. Download video ›
A new video of the helicopter’s third flight gives viewers the sensation of standing on the Red Planet and seeing the action firsthand.
When NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took to the Martian skies on its third flight on April 25, the agency’s Perseverance rover was there to capture the historic moment. Now NASA engineers have rendered the flight in 3D, lending dramatic depth to the flight as the helicopter ascends, hovers, then zooms laterally off-screen before returning for a pinpoint landing. Seeing the sequence is a bit like standing on the Martian surface next to
May 11, 2021
Figure C
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover viewed these rocks using its Mastcam-Z imager on April 27, 2021, the 66th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Stitched together from 21 images, this mosaic is not white balanced; instead, it is displayed in a preliminary calibrated version of a natural-color composite, approximately simulating the colors of the scene as it would appear on Mars.
For scale, the largest piece of rock casting a shadow in the upper right part of the mosaic is about 11 inches (27 centimeters) across, and the entire scene is about 10 feet (3 meters) across. The smallest pebbles and other features that can reliably be resolved at this zoom scale are around 0.04 to 0.08 inches (1-2 millimeters) across.