From NASA
January 21, 2021
In this picture, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is standing on the surface of the Red Planet while NASA’s Perseverance Rover (partially visible on the left) rolls away. Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Ingenuity, a technology experiment, is preparing for the first powered, controlled flight on the Red Planet.
When NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars on February 18, 2021, it will carry a small but powerful passenger: Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter.
The helicopter, which weighs around 1.8 kilograms on earth and has a fuselage the size of a tissue box, started six years ago as an implausible prospect. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California knew it was theoretically possible to fly in the thin Martian atmosphere, but no one was sure they could build a vehicle powerful enough to be autonomous with the extreme limitations of its mass to fly, communicate and survive.
Then the team had to prove in earthbound tests that it could fly in a Mars-like environment. With these goals checked off, the team prepares to test Ingenuity in the actual environment of Mars.
“Our Mars Helicopter team has done things that have never been done before – that in the beginning no one could be sure that they could be done,” said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager at JPL. “We faced many challenges and could have stopped us. We are thrilled that we are now so close to demonstrating on Mars what Ingenuity can really do.”
Ingenuity survived the intense vibrations of July 30, 2020 launch and passed its health exams while waiting to plunge through the Martian atmosphere with endurance. But the helicopter won’t attempt its first flight until a month after landing: Rover and helicopter engineers need time to make sure that both robots are ready.
Here are the top things to know about Ingenuity when the anticipation rises:
1. Ingenuity is an experimental flight test.
The Mars helicopter is a so-called technology demonstration – a closely focused project in which a new function is to be tested for the first time. Earlier groundbreaking technology demonstrations included the first Mars rover Sojourner and the Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats flying past Mars.
The helicopter does not carry any scientific instruments and is not part of Perseverance’s scientific mission. Ingenuity’s goal is a technical one: to demonstrate the flight of rotary wing aircraft in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere, which is only about 1% of the density of our atmosphere on Earth.
Ingenuity will attempt up to five test flights within a demonstration window of 30 Mars days (31 Earth days). His pioneering endeavors are similar to those of the Wright brothers’ Flyer, who achieved the first powered, controlled flight on Earth.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will make the first attempt in history to perform a powered flight on another planet next spring. It is headed for the Agency’s next mission to Mars (the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover), which will be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station later this summer. Perseverance with ingenuity on the stomach will land on Mars on February 18, 2021. Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech
2. Mars does not make it easy for Ingenuity to attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.
Because the Martian atmosphere is so thin, Ingenuity is light, with rotor blades much larger and spinning much faster than would be required for a helicopter of Ingenuity’s mass on Earth.
The Red Planet also has temperatures above the bone, with nights of up to minus 90 degrees Celsius at Jezero Crater, the landing site of the rover and helicopter. These temperatures will exceed the original design limits of the standard parts used in Ingenuity. Tests on Earth at the predicted temperatures show the parts of Ingenuity should work as planned, but the team is looking forward to the actual test on Mars.
“Mars isn’t exactly pulling out the welcome mat,” said Tim Canham, Ingenuity operations director at JPL. “One of the first things Ingenuity has to do to get to Mars is survive the first night.”
3. Ingenuity relies on Mars 2020 Perseverance mission for safe passage to Mars and operations on the surface of the Red Planet.
Ingenuity is embedded with a cover on the side under the belly of the Perseverance rover to protect it from debris that is thrown up during landing. Both the rover and the helicopter are safely housed in a rattle-like space capsule for spacecraft during the 471 million kilometer journey to Mars. The power system of the Mars 2020 spacecraft regularly charges Ingenuity’s batteries along the way.
In order to reach the surface of Mars, Ingenuity rides with tenacity as it lands. The entry, descent and landing system of the rover has a supersonic parachute, new “brains” for autonomous avoidance of dangers and components for the sky crane maneuver with which the rover is lowered onto Mars by a descent vehicle. Only about 50% of attempts by a space agency to land on Mars were successful.
Once a suitable location for the helicopter is found, the rover’s Mars Helicopter Delivery System releases the landing cover, rotates the helicopter into a leg-down configuration, and gently drops Ingenuity onto the surface for the first few months after landing. During the helicopter’s commissioning and flight test campaign, the rover supports communication back and forth from Earth. The rover team also plans to collect images of Ingenuity.
4. Ingenuity is smart for a little robot.
Delays are an integral part of communicating with spacecraft over interplanetary distances, which means that Ingenuity’s air traffic controllers at JPL cannot control the helicopter with a joystick. In fact, they cannot display technical data or images from any flight until long after the flight.
Hence, Ingenuity will make some of its own decisions based on the parameters established by its engineers on Earth. The helicopter, for example, has some kind of programmable thermostat that keeps it warm on Mars. During the flight, Ingenuity analyzes sensor data and images of the terrain to ensure that it stays on the flight path designed by the project engineers.
5. The Ingenuity team counts success step by step.
Given the experimental nature of Ingenuity, the team has a long list of milestones the helicopter must reach before it can take off and land in spring 2021. The team will celebrate each milestone:
- Survive the cruise to Mars and land on the Red Planet
- Bring safely to the surface from the belly of Perseverance
- Keeping warm autonomously through the intensely cold Martian nights
- Autonomous charging with the solar panel on the rotors
- Successful communication to and from the helicopter via a subsystem known as the Mars Helicopter Base Station on the rover
If the first experimental flight test on another planet is successful, the Ingenuity team will attempt further test flights.
NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, will arrive on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021. His mission: to demonstrate the first powered flight on another world.
6. If Ingenuity is successful, future Martian exploration could include an ambitious air dimension.
Ingenuity is designed to demonstrate technologies and unique operations required to fly in the Martian atmosphere. If successful, these technologies and the experience of flying a helicopter on another planet could enable other advanced robotic aircraft that could be part of future robotic and human missions to Mars. Possible uses of a future helicopter on Mars are to offer a unique angle of view not provided by current high overhead orbiters or rovers and landers on the ground. high resolution images and education for robots or humans; and access to terrain difficult for rovers to reach. A future helicopter could even help move light but important payloads from one location to another.
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