When a small 4-pound helicopter took off over a red landscape on Monday morning, it became the first vessel to reach a controlled, powered flight on a planet beyond the earth.
On Monday around 06:15 EDT, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter team, together with avid viewers from around the world, watched live data from the red planet arrive at Mission Control via a Deep Space Network antenna. The data indicated that Ingenuity’s flight, which took place about four hours earlier, was a success.
“Sometimes we have to do something just to show that we can do it,” NASA co-administrator of science Thomas Zurbuchen said during NASA’s live stream of the event. ‘When the Wright brothers first flew, they flew an experimental plane. And in the same way, the Mars helicopter was designed to show that we can fly a powered helicopter flight into the Martian atmosphere. ”
The Ingenuity project manager, MiMi Aung, made ingenuity fly: “has been our team’s unwavering dream since day one. ‘
On Monday, downlink chief Michael Starch, dressed in an orange polo from the Ingenuity team, studied his computer screen in the helicopter control room. “It’s a shutdown. Early indications, ”he says, looking up from the monitor. “Data products look nominal.”
Nearby sits Aung, who is visibly grinning under her mask.
“This is ‘downlink,'” Starch repeated. “We have been collecting data products since March 2020.” He pauses for 39 seconds. The room was quiet. “It’s a downlink,” he said again. ‘To confirm that we have received Mars 2020 telemetry. Confirm that we have received the Mars 2020 event. To confirm that we have received helicopter data products. Starch nodded his head up and down.
Silence falls over the control room again. Aung twisted her fingers. Some teammates nod. Others glanced at their laptops and looked back at their colleagues waiting in suspense.
“This is ‘downlink,'” Starch said. “To confirm that our helicopter data products, helicopter telemetry, helicopter event … have received battery data.”
Members of NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Team, including MiMi Aung (front), in the NASA JPL Space Flight Operating Facility are preparing to receive the data downlink showing whether the helicopter completed its first flight on April 19, 2021. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Starch handed it to Flight Control, which gave its announcement: “Ingenuity reports that they performed spin-up, take-off, climb, soar, descend, landing, touchdown and spin-down.”
Aung gives two thumbs up and then swings with her fists. The control room erupted with a clap, and it came from people wearing masks, personally, and those watching Zoom.
“Confirm height measurements,” Flight Control said. Cheers exploded out of the control room. The altitude plot of the flight, mechanical engineer Taryn Bailey explained during NASA’s live stream, indicates a peak. It starts with a flat line showing that Ingenuity is grounded, has a steep slope, indicating that the helicopter has turned up and down, a dwelling showing that Ingenuity is hovering, and then another steep descent to the ground that suggests Ingenuity’s touch.
“Confirm that Ingenuity performed its first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet,” Flight Control said.
As the cheers and fist pumps continue, the team receives its first photo of the mission: a black-and-white photo that Ingenuity snapped as it hovered over the Mars surface, its shadow – four rotors, four legs and a tissue box-like body – cast beneath it .
Finding ingenuity to fly on Mars was no easy task. This first flight, originally scheduled for Sunday, April 11, was delayed after team engineers identified a possible problem. (The team decided to update Ingenuity’s flight control software before attempting a first flight.) And years of preparation on earth were needed.
From 2014, before the skill was tested, the team used helicopter models to simulate flights on Mars. “These models were the forerunners of Ingenuity and have undergone extensive environmental and aerodynamic testing,” Bailey said.
To test these models and then the ingenuity of 2019, we had to simulate ‘a Martian atmosphere’, which is 1% the density of the earth, Bailey explained. The team did this by using NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s 25-meter space simulator thermal vacuum chamber, which enabled the team to control temperature and pressure to mimic the atmospheric density of Mars. The team also used a gravity system to compensate for the difference in gravity between Earth and Mars, Bailey said.
After these tests: “We said, ‘The next time we fly, it’s going to be on Mars,'” Aung told a news conference on April 9.
The first flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was captured in this image from Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on April 19, 2021. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
At present, the ingenuity is so light and fast built, and it enhances the ability to soar in Mars’ incredibly thin atmosphere. Despite the small size, the helicopter’s wing span is point to point: ‘super big for something that actually carries [a vehicle] the size of a tissue, ”Bailey said.
Each of its four blades is made of a light but strong composite material and weighs less than 2 grams – the equivalent of four empty soda cans. To generate an elevator in an incredibly thin atmosphere with few molecules to push around, Ingenuity’s blades move at an average speed of 2,500 rotations per minute. (Helicopters used on Earth typically operate at 450 to 500 rpm.)
While Ingenuity’s first flight was modest – a soaring 10 feet above the surface of the red planet and a touch – the next four flights will increase in technical difficulties. The team hopes to eventually explore parts of Mars’ terrain that cannot navigate with terrestrial robbers such as Perseverance. “The rover has to move through a lot of obstacles on the ground, which can cause the helicopter to fly around,” Bailey said.
“We sent five robbers to Mars and now we have an air dimension that enhances the next phase of space exploration,” she added. Ingenuity and its eventual successors could also enable more collaboration and ultimately open the door for human exploration of other worlds, Bailey said.
Although the Ingenuity team has already received snapshots of the first flight of the Ingenuity and Perseverance helicopter, they expect to receive videos and more high-resolution images within the next few days. You can see it here on NASA’s website.