Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s Latest Flight Was a Major Challenge

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Ingenuity Helicopter Flight

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Animation highlighting NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter flying on Mars. Credit: NASA

It has actually been a week of increased apprehension on the Mars Helicopter group as we prepared a significant flight obstacle for Ingenuity. We uplinked guidelines for the flight, which took place Monday, July 5 at 2: 03 am PT, and waited nervously for outcomes to show up from Mars later on that early morning. The state of mind in the ground control space was pleased when we discovered that Ingenuity lived and well after finishing a journey covering 2,051 feet (625 meters) of challenging surface.

Flight 9 was not like the flights that came prior to it. It broke our records for flight period and cruise speed, and it almost quadrupled the range flown in between 2 airfields. But what truly set the flight apart was the surface that Ingenuity needed to work out throughout its 2 minutes and 46 seconds in the air – a location called “Séítah” that would be tough to pass through with a ground automobile like the Perseverance rover. This flight was likewise clearly developed to have science worth by offering the very first close view of significant science targets that the rover will not grab rather a long time.

Séítah Region Mars

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this image ignoring the “Séítah” area utilizing its navigation cam. The firm’s Ingenuity helicopter flew over this area throughout its ninth flight, on July 5. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Flying with our eyes open

In each of its previous flights, Ingenuity hopped from one airfield to another over mainly flat surface. In preparing the flights, we even made sure to prevent overflying a crater. We started by dipping into what appears like a greatly deteriorated crater, then continued to come down over sloped and undulating surface prior to climbing up once again to emerge on a flat plain to the southwest.

It might appear odd that the information of the surface would matter as much as they provide for an automobile that takes a trip through the air. The factor relates to Ingenuity’s navigation system and what it was initially developed for: a quick innovation presentation at a thoroughly selected speculative test website.

When we as humans take a look at moving pictures of the ground, such as those taken by Ingenuity’s navigation cam, we quickly have a respectable understanding of what we’re taking a look at. We see rocks and ripples, shadows and texture, and the ups and downs of the surface are reasonably apparent. Ingenuity, nevertheless, doesn’t have human understanding and understanding of what it’s taking a look at. It sees the world in regards to private, confidential functions – basically dots that move with time – and it attempts to translate the motion of those dots.

Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Flight Path 9

This map reveals the approximate flight course of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter throughout its ninth flight, on July 5. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

To make that task much easier, we offered Ingenuity’s navigation algorithm some aid: We informed it that those functions are all situated on flat ground. That released the algorithm from attempting to exercise variations in surface height, and allowed it to focus on analyzing the motion of the functions by the helicopter’s motions alone. But issues develop if we then attempt to fly over surface that isn’t truly flat. 

Differences in surface height will trigger functions to cross the field of vision at various rates, and Ingenuity’s navigation algorithm still “assumes” the ground listed below is flat. It does its finest to describe the motion of the functions by modifications in the helicopter’s motions, which can result in mistakes. Most substantially, it can lead to mistakes in the approximated heading, which will trigger the helicopter to fly in a various instructions than meant.

Getting prepared for a rough flight

The presumption about the ground being flat is baked into the style of the algorithm, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about that when preparing the flights. What we can do is to expect the concerns that will develop due to this presumption and to alleviate them to the best possible degree in regards to how we prepare the flights and the criteria we offer the software application.

We utilize simulation tools that permit us to study the most likely result of the flight in information prior to bring it out. For Flight 9, an essential adjustment of the flight strategy was to decrease our speed at the critical point when we dipped into the crater. Although it came at the expense of extending the flight time, it assisted alleviate early heading mistakes that might turn into a big cross-track position mistake. We likewise changed a few of the comprehensive criteria of the navigation algorithm that we have actually not needed to touch up until now in previous flights. And we took a much bigger airfield than in previous flights, with a radius of 164 feet (50 meters). We wound up landing roughly 154 feet (47 meters) far from the center of that airfield.

In the week ahead, Ingenuity will return color images that Perseverance’s researchers are anticipating studying. Captured in those images are rock outcrops that reveal contacts in between the significant geologic systems on Jezero Crater’s flooring. They likewise consist of a system of fractures the Perseverance group calls “Raised Ridges,” which the rover’s researchers wish to check out in part to examine whether an ancient subsurface environment may be protected there.

Finally, we’re hoping the color images will supply the closest appearance yet at “Pilot Pinnacle,” a place including outcrops that some staff member believe might tape-record a few of the inmost water environments in old Lake Jezero. Given the tight objective schedule, it’s possible that they will not have the ability to check out these rocks with the rover, so Ingenuity might provide the only chance to study these deposits in any information.

Written by Håvard F. Grip, Ingenuity Chief Pilot, and Ken Williford, Perseverance Deputy Project Scientist