Small helicopters have become a regular traveling companion of the persistent explorer.
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Washington, United States of America:
It should only fly five times. However, NASA’s helicopter on Mars, Ingenuity, has completed 12 flights and is not ready to retire.
Due to its astonishing and unexpected success, the US space agency has extended the Ingenuity mission indefinitely.
Tiny helicopters have become regular traveling companions for aspiring explorers, whose primary mission is to search for signs of ancient life on Mars.
“Everything went well,” said Josh Ravich, head of the mechanical engineering team at Ingenuity. “We are on the surface better than we expected.”
Hundreds of people have contributed to the project, although only about a dozen currently hold daily roles.
Raveesh joined the team five years ago.
“When I had the opportunity to work on a helicopter project, I think I got the same reaction as everyone else: ‘Is this possible?’
His initial suspicions were understandable: the density of the air on Mars is only 1% of Earth’s atmosphere. In comparison, flying a helicopter on Mars is like flying through the air 20 miles (30 kilometers) above Earth.
And it wasn’t easy to get to Mars in the first place. Creativity had to endure the initial shock of taking off from Earth, then landing on February 18 on the Red Planet after a seven-month journey through space, strapped to the belly of the rover.
Once in its new environment, the tiny helicopter (four pounds or 1.8 kilograms) must survive the frigid Martian nights, drawing warmth from the solar panels that charge its batteries during the day. Its flights were routed using a series of sensors, as a 15-minute delay in communications from the ground made real-time routing impossible.
Scout Tasks
On April 19, Ingenuity made its maiden flight, making history as the first robotic vehicle to fly on another planet.
Exceeding all expectations, it flew 11 more.
“We were really able to handle stronger winds than we expected,” Ravic told AFP.
said Ravich, who worked at NASA’s famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which developed the helicopter.
Since then, Ingenuity has flown 39 feet (12 meters), and its last flight took 2 minutes 49 seconds. In all, he traveled 1.6 miles.
In May, Ingenuity flew its first one-way mission, landing outside the relatively flat “airport” that it had carefully chosen as its first home.
But not everything went smoothly. His sixth flight brought some excitement.
After suffering a serious loss of balance due to damage that affected photos taken in flight to help it stabilize, the tiny plane was able to recover. You landed safely, and the problem has been resolved.
Creativity is now sent to explore the path to perseverance with a high-resolution color camera.
The goal is twofold: to map out a path that is safe for explorers, but also scientifically interesting, especially from a geological point of view.
Ken Farley, who heads the science team at Perseverance, explains how images taken by Ingenuity during its twelfth trip show that the area dubbed South Seitha is less in demand than scientists had hoped.
As a result, the rover cannot be sent there.
favorable conditions
After more than six months on the Red Planet, this tiny drone-like craft has gained a growing following on Earth, appearing in coffee cups and T-shirts sold online.
What explains longevity?
“The environment so far has been very cooperative: temperature, wind, sun, dust in the air… It’s still very cold, but could be much worse,” Ravic said.
In theory, the helicopter should be able to continue operating for some time. But the approaching Martian winter will be difficult.
NASA engineers, now armed with data from Ingenuity flights, are already working on their next generation.
“Something in the 20 to 30 kilograms (range) could probably carry a scientific payload,” Ravic said.
That future payload may include rock samples collected with diligence.
NASA plans to take those samples during future missions – sometime in the 2030s.
(This story has not been edited by the NDTV crew and was created automatically from a shared feed.)
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