The overview takes an in depth look the ultimate flight of the company’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which was the primary plane to fly on one other world.
Engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and AeroVironment are finishing an in depth evaluation of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s remaining flight on Jan. 18, 2024, which might be printed within the subsequent few weeks as a NASA technical report. Designed as a know-how demonstration to carry out as much as 5 experimental take a look at flights over 30 days, Ingenuity was the primary plane on one other world. It operated for nearly three years, carried out 72 flights, and flew greater than 30 occasions farther than deliberate whereas accumulating over two hours of flight time.
The investigation concludes that the lack of Ingenuity’s navigation system to supply correct knowledge through the flight possible triggered a series of occasions that ended the mission. The report’s findings are anticipated to profit future Mars helicopters, in addition to different plane destined to function on different worlds.
Ultimate Ascent
Flight 72 was deliberate as a quick vertical hop to evaluate Ingenuity’s flight programs and {photograph} the world. Information from the flight reveals Ingenuity climbing to 40 ft (12 meters), hovering, and capturing pictures. It initiated its descent at 19 seconds, and by 32 seconds the helicopter was again on the floor and had halted communications. The next day, the mission reestablished communications, and pictures that got here down six days after the flight revealed Ingenuity had sustained extreme harm to its rotor blades.
What Occurred
“When operating an accident investigation from 100 million miles away, you don’t have any black packing containers or eyewitnesses,” stated Ingenuity’s first pilot, Håvard Grip of JPL. “Whereas a number of eventualities are viable with the accessible knowledge, we have now one we consider is probably: Lack of floor texture gave the navigation system too little data to work with.”
The helicopter’s imaginative and prescient navigation system was designed to trace visible options on the floor utilizing a downward-looking digicam over well-textured (pebbly) however flat terrain. This restricted monitoring functionality was greater than ample for finishing up Ingenuity’s first 5 flights, however by Flight 72 the helicopter was in a area of Jezero Crater crammed with steep, comparatively featureless sand ripples.
One of many navigation system’s important necessities was to supply velocity estimates that may allow the helicopter to land inside a small envelope of vertical and horizontal velocities. Information despatched down throughout Flight 72 reveals that, round 20 seconds after takeoff, the navigation system couldn’t discover sufficient floor options to trace.
Images taken after the flight point out the navigation errors created excessive horizontal velocities at landing. Within the probably situation, the exhausting impression on the sand ripple’s slope triggered Ingenuity to pitch and roll. The fast angle change resulted in masses on the fast-rotating rotor blades past their design limits, snapping all 4 of them off at their weakest level — a few third of the best way from the tip. The broken blades triggered extreme vibration within the rotor system, ripping the rest of 1 blade from its root and producing an extreme energy demand that resulted in lack of communications.
Down however Not Out
Though Flight 72 completely grounded Ingenuity, the helicopter nonetheless beams climate and avionics take a look at knowledge to the Perseverance rover about as soon as every week. The climate data may benefit future explorers of the Pink Planet. The avionics knowledge is already proving helpful to engineers engaged on future designs of plane and different autos for the Pink Planet.
“As a result of Ingenuity was designed to be inexpensive whereas demanding large quantities of pc energy, we turned the primary mission to fly business off-the-shelf cellphone processors in deep area,” stated Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s mission supervisor. “We’re now approaching 4 years of steady operations, suggesting that not the whole lot must be greater, heavier, and radiation-hardened to work within the harsh Martian setting.”
Impressed by Ingenuity’s longevity, NASA engineers have been testing smaller, lighter avionics that may very well be utilized in car designs for the Mars Pattern Return marketing campaign. The info can be serving to engineers as they analysis what a future Mars helicopter may appear to be — and do.
Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Throughout a Wednesday, Dec. 11, briefing on the American Geophysical Union’s annual assembly in Washington, Tzanetos shared particulars on the Mars Chopper rotorcraft, an idea that he and different Ingenuity alumni are researching. As designed, Chopper is roughly 20 occasions heavier than Ingenuity, may fly a number of kilos of science gear, and autonomously discover distant Martian places whereas touring as much as 2 miles (3 kilometers) in a day. (Ingenuity’s longest flight was 2,310 ft, or 704 meters.)
“Ingenuity has given us the boldness and knowledge to check the way forward for flight at Mars,” stated Tzanetos.
Extra About Ingenuity
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was constructed by JPL, which additionally manages the mission for NASA Headquarters. It’s supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Ames Analysis Middle in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Analysis Middle in Hampton, Virginia, supplied important flight efficiency evaluation and technical help throughout Ingenuity’s growth. AeroVironment, Qualcomm, and SolAero additionally supplied design help and main car parts. Lockheed Area designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Supply System. At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is this system govt for the Ingenuity Mars helicopter.
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