NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity: What You Need to Know Before the Historic First Flight

NASA’s wheels revealed an incredible amount about Mars. Of learn about the planet’s wet history, the chemistry of its soil and the mysterious presence of methane in its atmosphere, the agency’s rolling robots were indispensable for painting a picture of one of the earth’s closest neighbors. But they can not cover much ground – slow movement is critical to prevent them from tumbling over a cliff or colliding with a rock.

But imagine that they could fly.

Scattering a set of wings on another planet to a robot will open up a whole new way of exploring other worlds. “The ability to fly where you want, at fast speeds, for accurate views without the risk of collision or fall is an exciting ability,” says Alan Duffy, a professor of astrophysics at Swinburne University in Australia. .

This is exactly what NASA did with Ingenuity, a small, lightweight rotorcraft would originally fly on Mars on April 11 but since then delayed for the second time. It is now ready to fly. When it takes off, it’s the first time humans have reached a propelled, controlled flight on another planet – a moment of Wright brothers in another part of the cosmos.

However, there are significant challenges to flying on Mars, and ingenuity has to do with a planet that particularly enjoys the killing of spacecraft. Should it succeed in getting off the ground, it would pave the way for future missions, deeper into the cosmos.

That’s why Ingenuity is so ingenious.

Advance checks

If you’re wondering how NASA got a helicopter to Mars and feel like you did not hear too much about it, it’s probably because NASA’s Perseverance Rover stole all the spotlight. Ingenuity is a “ride-along” mission and a technological demonstration. It’s not on Mars to perform science. On the contrary, it is built to show that motor flight is possible in another world.

Ingenuity was hidden in the belly of perseverance during the long journey of the rover from Earth to Mars, which kicked off in July. The wanderer landed on the planet in Februaryand Ingenuity were safe and sound from the hard, cold Mars surface until April 4 Perseverance carefully put the helicopter down on the ground.

While aboard Perseverance, the ingenuity was protected and powered by the instrument’s range of instruments. But after it was downloaded and perseverance rolled away, Ingenuity was cold and alone – literally. March temperatures drop to below freezing to around 130 degrees Fahrenheit at night. Fortunately, Ingenuity has shown that it can handle the cold when it survived his first night, separated from his rover friend.

However, the relationship with perseverance has not yet ended. When Ingenuity undertakes its first flight, it will be perseverance that conveys the messages to the earth

On April 6, Ingenuity took its first photo of Mars, a low-resolution, orange-and-brown screenshot of the surface. It’s not much, but if you want to work technically, this is the first time a vehicle is capable of flight took a picture of the surface of the red planet, so it’s pretty cool.

On April 10, NASA said it was delays Ingenuity’s first flight until “not earlier than April 14” due to a safety warning during a test the previous day of the copter’s rotors. During the test, “the command sequence that controls the test was terminated early due to a ‘watchdog’ timer,” the space agency said in a status update. “It happened while trying to switch the flight computer from ‘Pre-flight’ to ‘Flight’.”

NASA added that the watchdog timer ‘monitors the command sequence and warns the system of possible problems. It helps the system stay safe by not continuing if a problem is detected. ‘

The Ingenuity team is diagnosing the problem and will reschedule the rotor test based on its findings, the agency said, adding that the copier remains ‘safe and sound’. The date has been revised and the first flight is now not expected earlier than April 19.

The cabin doors are now closed

There are many challenges to reach flight on Mars, but the most important is the sky.

There is a clear difference in atmosphere between the red planet and the earth. The atmosphere of Mars is incredibly thin compared to our own, so it’s harder to reach the elevator. Ingenuity is designed to address this issue. Although we have already mentioned it, from a helicopter to a kite, a helicopter to a rotor craft, the technology that reminds me most of a drone.

However, its blades are much larger than those for a similar craft on earth, and they rotate at about 2400 rpm – six times faster than on a craft on earth. With this speed and size, tests on Earth have shown that ingenuity can get off the ground on Mars without any problems.

Unlike a drone, however, no one drives the vehicle in real time. The Ingenuity team had to upload instructions to the craft well in advance and will then receive data back after it flees. Ingenuity is designed to be very autonomous and to stay healthy during the communication delay between the two planets.

Prepare for takeoff

Before Perseverance’s landing in Jezero Crater on February 18, the Ingenuity team was looking for an ‘airport’ and surrounding ‘flight zone’ – a flat, mostly empty area on Mars’ surface that would not endanger the safety of Ingenuity. do not set.

Luckily there was basically one next to the landing site. “We started to realize that we would have a great airport right in front of our noses,” said NASA’s Håvard Fjær Grip, the chief pilot for Ingenuity. Grip says the team looked at “every rock and pebble” before deciding on the home base for the helicopter.

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

The rotor vessel will take off upright for about three meters and hover in place for about 30 seconds. Then it will make a small turn before coming down and landing again. During the flight, Ingenuity’s eyes and brain will work overtime, pre-programmed by the team to keep the craft safe.

It will take 30 frames per second of the ground to understand where it is and to make the necessary trajectory changes – about 500 times per second, according to Grip. This autonomy ensures that ingenuity will not be blown off course by a sudden Martian wind.

An information session after the flight is expected to take place on Monday 19 April will be available here, via NASA TV.

Future missions

As NASA engineers have repeatedly stated: ingenuity is a ‘technology demonstration’, just like the very first Mars rover, Sojourner, which rolled across the planet in 1997.

In many ways Ingenuity has already succeeded: it has 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 the exploration of Mars, but also for the exploration of our entire solar system.

“If Ingenuity proves that we can successfully operate aircraft on other planets, it will greatly expand 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 quickly climb mountainous regions, investigate cracks in hills, fly over lakes or multi-beds and move quickly to avoid danger. With the right equipment, they can also grab monsters and bring them back to a rolling robot. You can even imagine a combination of Mars Rover-Rotorcraft in the future, allowing space agencies to more accurately explore their landing site and decide on the best place to roll to the next day.

There are other missions – and worlds – that will also benefit from Ingenuity’s demo.

One such mission is Dragonfly from NASA, who calls Horner Ingenuity’s “big sister”, will visit that mission Titan, one of the most intriguing moons of Saturn. The moon is rich in organic matter, contains a nitrogen-rich atmosphere like the earth and is home to massive methane lakes a storm. It can even contain signs of life, past or present.

“Titan is not like any other place in the solar system, and Dragonfly is like no other mission,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s co-administrator of the Scientific Mission’s directorate. It’s a little more ambitious than Ingenuity, with the spacecraft containing all the necessary tools to look for signs of life and studying the Selk impact crater, which presumably once contained liquid water. Dragonfly is expected to launch in 2027 and reach Titan by 2034.

If ingenuity comes from the ground, the dream of another world flight will become a reality – ushering in the next era of exploring the planet.