Now uncocooned from its protective carbon-fiber guard, the helicopter is being prepared for its next actions.
NASA is targeting no earlier than April 8 for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter to make the very first effort at powered, managed flight of an airplane on another world. Before the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft can try its very first flight, nevertheless, both it and its group should satisfy a series of difficult turning points.
Ingenuity stays connected to the stomach of NASA’s Perseverance rover, which touched down on Mars on February 18. On March 21, the rover released the guitar case-shaped graphite composite particles guard that safeguarded Ingenuity throughout landing. The rover presently remains in transit to the “airfield” where Ingenuity will try to fly. Once released, Ingenuity will have 30 Martian days, or sols, (31 Earth days) to perform its test flight project.
This image is an illustration of NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter flying on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“When NASA’s Sojourner rover landed on Mars in 1997, it proved that roving the Red Planet was possible and completely redefined our approach to how we explore Mars. Similarly, we want to learn about the potential Ingenuity has for the future of science research,” stated Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. “Aptly named, Ingenuity is a technology demonstration that aims to be the first powered flight on another world and, if successful, could further expand our horizons and broaden the scope of what is possible with Mars exploration.”
Flying in a regulated way on Mars is much more hard than flying on Earth. The Red Planet has considerable gravity (about one-third that of Earth’s), however its environment is simply 1% as thick as Earth’s at the surface area. During Martian daytime, the world’s surface area gets just about half the quantity of solar power that reaches Earth throughout its daytime, and nighttime temperature levels can drop as low as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius), which can freeze and break unguarded electrical parts.
The particles guard, a protective covering on the bottom of NASA’s Perseverance rover, was launched on March 21, 2021. The particles guard secures the company’s Ingenuity helicopter throughout landing. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
To fit within the readily available lodgings supplied by the Perseverance rover, the Ingenuity helicopter should be little. To fly in the Mars environment, it should be light-weight. To make it through the freezing Martian nights, it should have sufficient energy to power internal heating systems. The system – from the efficiency of its rotors in rarified air to its photovoltaic panels, electrical heating systems, and other parts – has actually been checked and retested in the vacuum chambers and test laboratories of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“Every step we have taken since this journey began six years ago has been uncharted territory in the history of aircraft,” stated Bob Balaram, Mars Helicopter primary engineer at JPL. “And while getting deployed to the surface will be a big challenge, surviving that first night on Mars alone, without the rover protecting it and keeping it powered, will be an even bigger one.”
Deploying the Helicopter
Before Ingenuity takes its very first flight on Mars, it should be directly in the middle of its airfield – a 33-by-33-foot (10-by-10-meter) spot of Martian realty selected for its flatness and absence of blockages. Once the helicopter and rover groups verify that Perseverance is located precisely where they desire it to be inside the airfield, the fancy procedure to release the helicopter on the surface area of Mars starts.
“As with everything with the helicopter, this type of deployment has never been done before,” stated Farah Alibay, Mars Helicopter combination lead for the Perseverance rover. “Once we start the deployment there is no turning back. All activities are closely coordinated, irreversible, and dependent on each other. If there is even a hint that something isn’t going as expected, we may decide to hold off for a sol or more until we have a better idea what is going on.”
This image reveals the flight zone of NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter flight zone from the viewpoint of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The flight zone is the location within which the helicopter will fly.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The helicopter implementation procedure will take about 6 sols (6 days, 4 hours on Earth). On the very first sol, the group on Earth will trigger a bolt-breaking gadget, launching a locking system that assisted hold the helicopter securely versus the rover’s stomach throughout launch and Mars landing. The following sol, they will fire a cable-cutting pyrotechnic gadget, making it possible for the mechanized arm that holds Ingenuity to start turning the helicopter out of its horizontal position. This is likewise when the rotorcraft will extend 2 of its 4 landing legs.
During the 3rd sol of the implementation series, a little electrical motor will end up turning Ingenuity till it locks, bringing the helicopter totally vertical. During the 4th sol, the last 2 landing legs will snap into position. On each of those 4 sols, the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering (WATSON) imager will take verification shots of Ingenuity as it incrementally unfolds into its flight setup. In its last position, the helicopter will hang suspended at about 5 inches (13 centimeters) over the Martian surface area. At that point, just a single bolt and a couple lots small electrical contacts will link the helicopter to Perseverance. On the 5th sol of implementation, the group will utilize the last chance to make use of Perseverance as a source of power and charge Ingenuity’s 6 battery cells.
“Once we cut the cord with Perseverance and drop those final 5 inches to the surface, we want to have our big friend drive away as quickly as possible so we can get the Sun’s rays on our solar panel and begin recharging our batteries,” stated Balaram.
NASA’s Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, got here on Mars on February 18, 2021. Its objective: to show the very first powered flight on another world. Taking to the Martian skies in Spring 2021. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
On the 6th and last set up sol of this implementation stage, the group will require to verify 3 things: that Ingenuity’s 4 legs are securely on the surface area of Jezero Crater, that the rover did, undoubtedly, drive about 16 feet (about 5 meters) away, which both helicopter and rover are interacting through their onboard radios. This turning point likewise starts the 30-sol clock throughout which time all preflight checks and flight tests should happen.
“Ingenuity is an experimental engineering flight test – we want to see if we can fly at Mars,” stated MiMi Aung, task supervisor for Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at JPL. “There are no science instruments onboard and no goals to obtain scientific information. We are confident that all the engineering data we want to obtain both on the surface of Mars and aloft can be done within this 30-sol window.”
As with implementation, the helicopter and rover groups will approach the upcoming flight test systematically. If the group misses out on or has concerns about a crucial preflight turning point, they might take several sols to much better comprehend the problem. If the helicopter makes it through the opening night of the series duration on the surface area of Mars, nevertheless, the group will invest the next a number of sols doing whatever possible to guarantee an effective flight, consisting of wiggling the rotor blades and validating the efficiency of the inertial measurement system, in addition to checking the whole rotor system throughout a spin-up to 2,537 rpm (while Ingenuity’s landing equipment stay securely on the surface area).
The First Flight Test on Mars
Once the group is prepared to try the very first flight, Perseverance will get and pass on to Ingenuity the last flight directions from JPL objective controllers. Several aspects will identify the accurate time for the flight, consisting of modeling of regional wind patterns plus measurements taken by the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) aboard Perseverance. Ingenuity will run its rotors to 2,537 rpm and, if all last self-checks look excellent, take off. After climbing up at a rate of about 3 feet per 2nd (1 meter per second), the helicopter will hover at 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface area for approximately 30 seconds. Then, the Mars Helicopter will come down and touch pull back on the Martian surface area.
Several hours after the very first flight has actually taken place, Perseverance will downlink Ingenuity’s very first set of engineering information and, perhaps, images and video from the rover’s Navigation Cameras and Mastcam-Z. From the information downlinked that very first night after the flight, the Mars Helicopter group anticipates to be able to identify if their very first effort to fly at Mars was a success.
This image reveals where NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will take its test flights. Helicopter engineers included the places for the rover landing website, the airfield, and the flight zone on an image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) cam on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
On the following sol, all the staying engineering information gathered throughout the flight, in addition to some low-resolution black-and-white images from the helicopter’s own Navigation Camera, might be downlinked to JPL. The 3rd sol of this stage, the 2 images taken by the helicopter’s high-resolution color cam ought to show up. The Mars Helicopter group will utilize all info readily available to identify when and how to move on with their next test.
“Mars is hard,” stated Aung. “Our plan is to work whatever the Red Planet throws at us the very same way we handled every challenge we’ve faced over the past six years – together, with tenacity and a lot of hard work, and a little Ingenuity.”
A Piece of History
While Ingenuity will try the very first powered, managed flight on another world, the very first powered, managed flight on Earth happened December 17, 1903, on the windswept dunes of Kill Devil Hill, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville and Wright covered 120 feet in 12 seconds throughout the very first flight. The Wright bros made 4 flights that day, each longer than the previous.
Orville Wright makes the very first powered, managed flight on Earth at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. Material covering the wing of the airplane, Flyer 1, was flown to Mars aboard NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which will try the very first powered, managed flight on another world. Credit: Library of Congress
A percentage of the product that covered among the wings of the Wright bros’ airplane, referred to as the Flyer, throughout the very first flight is now aboard Ingenuity. An insulative tape was utilized to cover the little example of material around a cable television situated beneath the helicopter’s photovoltaic panel. The Wrights utilized the exact same kind of product – a natural muslin called “Pride of the West” – to cover their glider and airplane wings starting in 1901. The Apollo 11 team flew a various piece of the product, in addition to a little splinter of wood from the Wright Flyer, to the Moon and back throughout their renowned objective in July 1969.
More About Ingenuity
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was constructed by JPL, which likewise handles the innovation presentation for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. NASA’s Ames Research Center and Langley Research Center supplied considerable flight efficiency analysis and technical help.
