TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – One year ago, on February 18, 2021, NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, landed at Jezero Crater, Mars. This achievement made it the first helicopter to ever fly in the skies of the world beyond Earth.
So far, the $85 million Ingenuity mission has amassed a total of 19 explorations of the Red Planet and counting.
“We’re still very strong,” Jaakko Karras, deputy head of Ingenuity operations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) NASA in Southern California, as quoted by Space, February 17, 2022. “There wasn’t a single item that made us nervous. Everything is holding up really well.”
Helicopter solar powered it worked so well and stayed healthy that NASA gave the mission extension.
Ingenuity flew to Mars in the bowels of Perseverance and was ejected from the sample-hunting probe six weeks after landing, on April 3, 2021. The helicopter then began a month-long campaign of extraterrestrial flights.
Ingenuity supported the mission to demonstrate the technology, etching its name in aviation history books alongside legends such as Wilbur and Orville Wright.
The show wasn’t the only link between Ingenuity and the Wright brothers. The helicopter brought to Mars a small piece of cloth from Flyer 1, the craft that made its first powered flight to Earth in December 1903.
Ingenuity has pushed the boundaries of Red Planet flight during this new phase. For example, on flight 11, on August 4, the helicopter traveled 1,257 feet (383 meters), was 39 feet (12 m) above red ground and reached a maximum speed of about 11 mph (19 km/h). Ingenuity has not hit that limit on any of its first five flights.
The Rotorcraft also does reconnaissance work for Perseverance on longer and more ambitious voyages, helping the rover team plan routes and reach potential science targets.
For example, Perseverance’s handlers decided not to send the six-wheeled robot into an area dubbed “Raised Ridges” largely because of Ingenuity’s reconnaissance. “That’s not to say the team didn’t have a great debate about the true value of science,” JPL’s Kevin Hand, co-leader of Perseverance’s first science campaign.
“But at least with Ingenuity, we were able to take a closer look and see that there wasn’t anything very different from what we observed elsewhere.” Kevin admires Ingenuity’s longevity, calling it “a capable little machine.”
The mission as a pavers has not been completely smooth for Ingenuity. For example, the helicopter failed to switch to flight mode as planned ahead of the first surprise flight, sending that historic takeoff delayed by about a week.
Ingenuity’s first attempt at flight 14 was aborted after the helicopter detected anomalies in two of its six flight control servo motors. And a massive Martian dust storm delayed 19’s flight by more than a month. Such problems have been expected in planetary exploration missions, particularly those that spearhead new technologies and capabilities.
Ingenuity has supported it all to date, suggesting that the future is very bright for aerial exploration on Mars.
Read:
Untested, Glow Effect in The Dark Helicopter Ingenuity on Mars
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