NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingeniousness: What You Need to Know Before Your First Historic Flight

NASA’s wheeled rovers have revealed an incredible amount about Mars. from learning about the wet history of the planet, its soil chemistry and the amazing presence of methane in its atmosphere, the agency’s rolling stock was indispensable to paint a picture of one of Earth’s closest neighbors. But they can’t cover much ground – slow motion is essential to keep them from falling over a rock or crashing into a rock.

But imagine if it could fly.

Connecting a set of wings to a robot on another planet would open up a whole new way to explore other worlds. “The ability to fly anywhere you want, at high speed, for an overview, without the risk of damage due to collision or fall, is a thrilling ability,” says Alan Duffy, a professor of astrophysics at Swinburne University in Australia.

That’s exactly what NASA did ingeniously, a little, Slight rotor plane originally scheduled to take flight to Mars on April 11 but since then postponed for the second time. Now it’s ready to fly. If it takes off, it will be the first time humans have made a controlled and controlled flight to another planet – a moment of the Wright brothers in another part of the cosmos.

However, there are significant challenges in flying to Mars, and ingenuity must fight a planet that especially enjoys killing spacecraft. If he manages to get off the ground, he will pave the way for future missions, deeper into the cosmos.

That’s why ingenuity is so ingenious.

Pre-flight checks

If you’re wondering how NASA brought a helicopter to Mars and you feel like you haven’t heard much about it, it’s likely that NASA’s Perseverance rover stole all the spotlight. Ingenuity is a ride-along mission and a technological demonstration. It is not on Mars to do any science. Rather, it is built to show that motor flight is possible in another world.

The ingenuity was hidden in the belly of Perseverance during the long stay of the rover from Earth to Mars, which began in July. rover landed on the planet in February, and ingenuity was safe and sound on the rough, cold surface of the Martian until April 4, when Perseverance carefully dropped the helicopter on the ground.

While aboard Perseverance, the ingenuity was protected and fueled by the rover’s instrument suite. But after he was let go, and Perseverance drifted away, the ingenuity was cold and lonely – quite literally. Temperatures on Mars drop well below freezing at night, to about minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Fortunately, ingenuity has shown that it can cope with the cold when he survived his first night apart from his friend.

The relationship with Perseverance did not end, however. When ingenuity takes its first flight, Perseverance will send those messages back to Earth

On April 6, Ingeniousness took the first photograph of Mars, a snapshot of the low-resolution surface, orange and brown. It’s not much, but if you want to get technical, it’s a vehicle for the first time able The flight took a picture of the surface of the red planet, so it’s pretty cool.

On April 10, NASA said so Ingenuity’s first flight delayed to “no earlier than April 14” due to a safety alert during a test from the previous day of the rotor rotors. During that test, the command sequence controlling the test ended early due to the expiration of the “watchdog” timer, the space agency said in a status update. “This happened while trying to switch the flight computer from ‘Pre-Flight’ mode to ‘Flight’ mode.”

NASA added that the watchdog’s timer “monitors the command sequence and alerts the system to any potential problems. It helps the system stay safe, not proceeding if a problem is observed.”

The intelligence team diagnoses the problem and will reschedule the rotor test based on its findings, the agency said, adding that the helicopter remains “safe and healthy.” The date has been revised again and the first flight is now expected no earlier than April 19.

The cabin doors are now closed

There are a lot of challenges to make the flight to Mars, but the biggest is the air.

There is a strong difference in atmosphere between the red planet and Earth. The Martian atmosphere is incredibly thin compared to ours, so the ascent is much more difficult. Ingeniousness is designed to solve this problem. Although I’ve already called it everything, from a helicopter to a pilot, a helicopter to a rotor, the technology that reminds me the most is a drone.

However, its blades are much larger than those for a boat of similar size on Earth and spin at about 2,400 rpm – six times faster than a ship on Earth. At this speed and size, Earth-based tests have shown that ingenuity should be able to get off the ground on Mars without problems.

Unlike a drone, however, no one pilots the vehicle in real time. The ingenuity team had to load instructions on the boat well in advance and then receive data back after making the flight. Ingeniousness is designed to be very autonomous and to stay healthy while delaying communication between the two planets.

Get ready for takeoff

Before Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater on February 18, the ingenuity team was looking for a surrounding “aerodrome” and “flight zone” – a flat, largely empty area on the surface of Mars that would not endanger the safety of ingenuity.

Fortunately, it was a practical one next to the landing site. “We started to realize that we might have a really great airfield, right in front of our noses,” said Håvard Fjær Grip of NASA, the chief pilot for ingenuity. Grip says the team looked at “every stone and pebble” before deciding on their home base for the helicopter.

Within 30 messengers (about 31 days on Earth), Ingeniousness plans to make five flights, but the first is the most important. It will be a fairly simple flight.

The rotorcraft will take off, straight up, at an altitude of about three meters (about 10 feet) and will place in position for about 30 seconds. Then it will make a small turn before descending and landing again. During the flight, Ingenuity’s eyes and brain will work overtime, pre-programmed by the team to keep the boat safe.

It will capture 30 images per second from the ground to understand where it is and make any necessary path changes – about 500 times per second, according to Grip. This autonomy ensures that ingenuity will not be removed by a sudden Martian gust.

A post-flight briefing is expected on Monday, April 19 and will be available for viewing here on NASA TV.

Future missions

As NASA engineers have repeatedly said, ingenuity is a “technological demonstration,” just like the first rover on Mars, Sojourner, to run on the planet in 1997.

In many ways, ingenuity has already succeeded: it survived the journey to Mars, settled on the planet, and survived its first night alone, in the cold. His first flight will be important, not only for exploring Mars, but for exploring our entire solar system.

“If ingenuity proves we can successfully fly planes to other planets, it will greatly expand our exploration options in the future,” said Jonti Horner, a professor of astrophysics at the University of South Queensland.

Flight is a powerful tool for exploration. If robots can stay in the air, they will be able to climb mountains quickly, investigate cracks in hills, fly over lakes or beds, and move quickly to avoid danger. With the right equipment, they may be able to snatch samples and bring them back to a rolling robot. You can even imagine a Mars rover-rotorcraft combo in the future, allowing space agencies to research their landing location more precisely and decide on the best place to run until the next day.

There are other missions – and worlds – that will benefit from the Ingenuity demo.

Such a mission is Dragonfly NASA, whom Horner calls Ingenuity’s “older sister,” that mission will visit Titan, one of the most interesting months of Saturn. The moon is rich in organic matter, contains a nitrogen-rich atmosphere like the Earth, and hosts massive methane lakes and storms. It may even contain signs of life, past or present.

“Titan is unlike any other place in the solar system, and Dragonfly is like no other mission,” says Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate director for the scientific mission. It is a little more ambitious than ingenuity, the spacecraft containing all the tools needed to look for signs of life and study the Selk impact crater, which is once suspected of having liquid water. Dragonfly is scheduled to be launched in 2027 and reach Titan by 2034.

If ingenuity rises from the ground, the dream of flying from another world will become a reality – opening the next era of space exploration.