In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the plane for 12 seconds, 120 feet in the air, in what is now known as Earth’s first powered controlled flight. Now, 118 years later, an energy controlled flight experiment on another planet is imminent.
According to NASA, Ingenuity – the four pound helicopter associated with persistence – is on its way to an “airport” on Mars.
The Space Agency has announced that the target for its first attempt to take off will not occur before April 8, 2021.
Creativity was designed as an experiment to see if it was possible to fly on Mars as we do on Earth. And the process to take off is very complicated. Consider how long it would take humans to survive powered flight on Earth; Given Mars’ thin atmosphere and a twenty minute delay in contact, this could be said to be an even bigger challenge on Mars.
“As with helicopters, this type of deployment has never been carried out before,” Farah Alibai, Marshal Helicopter Integration Commander for Persistence aircraft, He said in a press release. “Once we started spreading, there was no turning back.”
Any movement over the next two weeks could make or break Ingenuity’s success – starting with positioning the helicopter precisely in the middle of a 33 x 33 square foot airport, which is actually an unobstructed flat plane on Mars. From there, the entire persistence propagation process will take about six sol days, called Soles. (Mars Mars is thirty-nine minutes longer than Earth Day.)
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The plan is that on Mars day as one of the six early moles, scientists on Earth will activate a bolt-breaking device that will release the key that carries creativity in the stomach of perseverance with gusto during the journey from Earth to Mars. At the second solstice, scientists will launch a “wire cutting fire” to begin pushing the helicopter out of a horizontal position; As well as cutting the cord, on the second Sol, creativity will literally start to extend two of its four legs. On the third day, the little electric motor will spin the creativity and make it really upright. On the fourth day, creativity will continue to emerge. On the fifth day, the scientists will diligently charge the Ingenuity battery as a source of solar energy. At this point, it will be suspended about 5 inches (13 cm) above the Martian surface, and connected by tenacity with just one nail and a few tiny electrical contacts.
“After we cut the cable with diligence and dropped the last five inches to the surface, we want to drive our best friend away as quickly as possible so that we can put sunlight onto our solar panels and start recharging our batteries,” said Bob Palaram, Mars Helicopter chief engineer at the Laboratory. Jet Propulsion, in a statement.
From there, it’s time to see if agility can fly. Persistence will cover 16 feet from Ingenuity, which will have 30 Mars to carry out its test flight campaign.
Flying is very difficult on Mars, not only because of the difference in gravity from Earth, but also because the atmosphere on Mars is only about 1 percent of the density of Earth’s atmosphere at the surface. There are also extreme temperature changes that take place on Mars; During the day, the red planet receives half of the amount of solar energy that reaches Earth. At night, the temperature drops to minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Creativity is small because it has to be light in order to fly in the atmosphere, but it also has to have enough energy to hold energy during the cold Martian nights. It is possible that creativity will not last until its first night on its own.
“Every step we’ve taken since I started this flight six years ago has become an unknown area in aircraft history,” said Ballaram. “And while surface propagation will be a huge challenge, surviving the first night on Mars alone, without rover protection and conserving energy, will be even more challenging.
Assuming that, however, persistence will send flight instructions to intelligence, through the millions of controllers on Earth. The plan is for Ingenuity to run its rotors to 2,537 rpm, then start. If all goes well, it will rise about three feet per second and hover 10 feet for 30 seconds before hitting the ground on Mars. After two trials, the real mission will begin.
Ong said, “Mars is hard.” “Our plan is to do everything the Red Planet throws at us in the same way we have faced every challenge we have faced over the past six years – together, with determination, a lot of hard work, a little creativity.”
In particular, the Ingenuity design contains the nod to the first power-controlled flight on Earth.
According to NASA, a small piece of cloth used to cover one of the wings of the Wright Brothers plane was placed under Ingenuity’s solar panels with the help of duct tape. The crew of Apollo 11 transport different materials during their historic mission to the moon in 1969.
“Innovation is an experimental flight test technique – we wanted to see if we could fly to Mars,” said Ong. “There are no scientific tools on board and there are no targets for scientific information. We believe that all the engineering data we want to have on the surface of Mars and above could be generated in the Mars 30 window. “
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