NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is not aiming for the very first attempt at power and controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet before April 8.
Members of the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California, explained at a news conference that there were still “a number of challenges ahead” and that every step in the process was unprecedented.
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“As with everything with the helicopter, this kind of deployment has never been done before,” said Farah Alibay, Mars Helicopter integration leader for the Perseverance rover. “Once we start deploying, there is no going back. All activities are now coordinated, irreversible and interdependent. If there is even a hint that something is not going as expected, we can decide for a [Martian day] or more until we have a better idea of what’s going on. ‘
Before Ingenuity can even attempt to fly in the Martian atmosphere, the 4-pound rotorcraft must first be deployed.
On March 21, the Perseverance Mars rover – which carried the ingenuity to the red planet – drop his debris shield who protected the helicopter and is currently on its way to the 33-to-33-foot “airport” where Ingenuity will try his first flight.
Once the rover reaches its flight zone, it will take about a week to get the helicopter running.
The Mars Helicopter Delivery System will turn and release the helicopter about 5 inches above the surface. Perseverance then has 25 hours to move to its “place for observation of robbers”.
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Ingenuity – which will be autonomous and loaded by its own solar panel – has a month-long window for up to five test flights.
“We’re going to run a number of days – about a week – where we test our sensors, our solo mechanism, to test the cars to make sure they turn right. And we’ll be very methodical and event-driven. as this engineering experiment unfolds, ”said Bob Balaram, Mars Helicopter Chief Engineer at JPL.
“And then we will be at a point where we will undertake our first flight, and then we will gradually undertake more flights once we understand and analyze all the behavior of that first flight,” he said.
Last week, JPL announced that he had chosen a flight zone just north of Perseverance’s landing site in the Jezero crater.
During the conference, the team of scientists announced that they would name the place in honor of their ‘colleague, mentor and leader’, Jakob van Zyl.
Van Zyl died of a heart attack in August last year and joined JPL in 1986. Engineering was one of his final projects and Bobby Braun – JPL’s director of planetary science – said the engineer was the ‘leading force’ for their team.
Once the robber has been charged, survived an icy Mars night and is ready to try flying, Perseverance will receive flight instructions to the helicopter and pass on again.
“Several factors will determine the exact time for the flight, including modeling local wind patterns plus measurements taken by the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) aboard Perseverance. Ingenuity will run its rotors up to 2,537 rpm and if all final self-checks look good, pull away, ‘NASA wrote in a Tuesday news release. “After climbing about 3 feet per second … the helicopter will soar above the surface for up to 30 seconds …. Then the Mars helicopter will land and hit the Mars surface again. “
Hours later, Perseverance will pass on data and possibly images and videos from his cameras to the JPL team to determine if their first flight was a success.
Based on what is provided to them, the engineers will then understand how best to proceed.
“Every step we have taken since the journey began six years ago has been an unprecedented area in the history of aircraft,” Balaram said. “And even if it is deployed to the surface, it will be a big challenge. It will be even bigger to survive that first night on Mars alone, without the rover protecting and holding it.”
What can go wrong?
If there is an error or bug, the process may take longer. Assuming Ingenuity comes through night one, the team will spend the next few days of March turning blades, testing the rotor system and verifying the performance of the inertia unit.
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Worryingly, it all makes history.
In recognition of this, a small amount of the material that is one of the wings of the Wright brothers’ Flyer is attached on board Ingenuity – under the helicopter’s solar panel with an insulating tape.
Interestingly, during the lunar landing of July 1969, the Apollo 11 NASA crew flew another piece of material and a splinter of the Wright Flyer.