NASA’s Mars Helicopter to Make Historic First Flight Attempt – “Martian Wright Brothers Moment”

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Ingenuity Helicopter Flight

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

The little rotorcraft’s “Wright brothers moment” is one Mars day away.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is 2 days far from making humankind’s very first effort at powered, managed flight of an airplane on another world. If all earnings as prepared, the 4-pound (1.8-kg) rotorcraft is anticipated to remove from Mars’ Jezero Crater Sunday, April 11, at 12: 30 p.m. regional Mars solar time (10: 54 p.m. EDT, 7: 54 p.m. PDT), hovering 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface area for approximately 30 seconds. Mission control professionals at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California anticipate to get the very first information from the very first flight effort the following early morning at around 4: 15 a.m. EDT (1: 15 a.m. PDT). NASA TELEVISION will air live protection of the group as they get the information, with commentary start at 3: 30 a.m. EDT (12: 30 a.m. PDT).

“While Ingenuity carries no science instruments, the little helicopter is already making its presence felt across the world, as future leaders follow its progress toward an unprecedented first flight,” stated Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters. “We do tech demos like this to push the envelope of our experience and provide something on which the next missions and the next generation can build. Just as Ingenuity was inspired by the Wright brothers, future explorers will take off using both the data and inspiration from this mission.”

Ingenuity's Blades Are Released

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter opened its blades, enabling them to spin easily, on April 7, 2021, the 47th Martian day, or sol, of the objective. This image was caught by the Mastcam-Z imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on the following sol, April 8, 2021. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Mars Helicopter is a high-risk, high-reward innovation presentation. If Ingenuity were to experience problems throughout its 30-sol (Martian day) objective, it would not affect the science event of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover objective.

Flying in a regulated way on Mars is much more hard than flying on Earth. Even though gravity on Mars has to do with one-third that of Earth’s, the helicopter needs to fly with the help of an environment whose pressure at the surface area is just 1% that of Earth. If effective, engineers will acquire indispensable in-flight information at Mars for contrast to the modeling, simulations, and tests carried out back here on Earth. NASA likewise will acquire its very first hands-on experience running a rotorcraft from another location at Mars. These datasets will be indispensable for possible future Mars objectives that might employ next-generation helicopters to include an aerial measurement to their expeditions.

Ingenuity Begins to Spin Its Blades

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter does a sluggish spin test of its blades, on April 8, 2021, the 48th Martian day, or sol, of the objective. This image was caught by the Navigation Cameras on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“From day one of this project our team has had to overcome a wide array of seemingly insurmountable technical challenges,” stated MiMi Aung, Ingenuity job supervisor at JPL. “And here we are – safely on Mars – on the eve of our first flight attempt. We got this far with a never-say-die attitude, a lot of friends from many different technical disciplines, and an agency that likes to turn far-out ideas into reality.”

“Mars is hard not only when you land, but when you try to take off from it and fly around, too.”
MiMi Aung, Ingenuity Project Manager

Anatomy of a First Flight

Sunday’s flight will be self-governing, with Ingenuity’s assistance, navigation, and control systems doing the piloting. That’s mainly due to the fact that radio signals will take 15 minutes, 27 seconds to bridge the 173-million-mile (278-million-kilometer) space in between Mars and Earth. It’s likewise because practically whatever about the Red Planet is requiring.

“Mars is hard not only when you land, but when you try to take off from it and fly around, too,” stated Aung. “It has significantly less gravity, but less than 1% the pressure of our atmosphere at its surface. Put those things together, and you have a vehicle that demands every input be right.”

Events leading up to the very first flight test start when the Perseverance rover, which works as an interactions base station for Ingenuity, gets that day’s guidelines from Earth. Those commands will have taken a trip from objective controllers at JPL through NASA’s Deep Space Network to a getting antenna aboard Perseverance. Parked at “Van Zyl Overlook,” some 215 feet (65 meters) away, the rover will send the commands to the helicopter about an hour later on.

Van Zyl Overlook, Mars

The place where NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will observe the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s effort at powered regulated flight at Mars is called “Van Zyl Overlook,” after Jakob van Zyl. Van Zyl was the group’s long time associate, coach, and leader at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. He died suddenly in August 2020, about a month after the launch of Perseverance. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Then, at 10: 53 p.m. EDT (7: 53 p.m. PDT), Ingenuity will start undergoing its myriad preflight checks. The helicopter will duplicate the blade-wiggle test it carried out 3 sols prior. If the algorithms running the assistance, navigation, and control systems consider the test results appropriate, they will switch on the inertial measurement system (an electronic gadget that determines a car’s orientation and rotation) and inclinometer (which determines slopes). If whatever checks out, the helicopter will once again change the pitch of its rotor blades, configuring them so they don’t produce lift throughout the early part of the spin-up.

The spin-up of the rotor blades will take about 12 seconds to go from 0 to 2,537 rpm, the ideal speed for the very first flight. After a last systems inspect, the pitch of the rotor blades will be commanded to alter yet once again – this time so they can go into those couple of particles of co2, nitrogen, and argon offered in the environment near the Martian surface area. Moments later on, the very first speculative flight test on another world will start.

“It should take us about six seconds to climb to our maximum height for this first flight,” stated JPL’s Håvard Grip, the flight control lead for Ingenuity. “When we hit 10 feet, Ingenuity will go into a hover that should last – if all goes well – for about 30 seconds.”

While hovering, the helicopter’s navigation electronic camera and laser altimeter will feed details into the navigation computer system to make sure Ingenuity stays not just level, however in the middle of its 33-by-33-foot (10-by-10-meter) airfield – a spot of Martian property selected for its flatness and absence of blockages. Then, the Mars Helicopter will come down and touch pull back on the surface area of Jezero Crater, sending out information back to Earth, through Perseverance, to verify the flight.

Perseverance is anticipated to get images of the flight utilizing its Navcam and Mastcam-Z imagers, with the photos anticipated to come down that night (morning Monday, April 12, in Southern California). The helicopter will likewise record the flight from its viewpoint, with a color image and numerous lower-resolution black-and-white navigation photos perhaps being offered by the next early morning.

“The Wright brothers only had a handful of eyewitnesses to their first flight, but the historic moment was thankfully captured in a great photograph,” stated Michael Watkins, director of JPL. “Now 117 years later, we are able to provide a wonderful opportunity to share the results of the first attempt at powered, controlled flight on another world via our robotic photographers on Mars.”

More About Ingenuity

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was developed by JPL, which likewise handles this innovation presentation job for NASA Headquarters in Washington. It is supported by NASA’s Science, Aeronautics, and Space Technology objective directorates. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, supplied substantial flight efficiency analysis and technical help.

At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. At JPL, MiMi Aung is the job supervisor and J. (Bob) Balaram is primary engineer.

JPL, which is handled for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, developed and handles operations of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.