NASA Reader's Response Draft 1

Ingenuity is the first spacecraft to have flown on Mars. It is equipped with fast spinning blades, carbon-fiber rotors, and weigh only 1.8kg to help it take flight on Mars. Furthermore, Ingenuity is equipped with solar panels to help recharge its battery on Mars and has antennas installed to help it communicate with Perseverance.

Ingenuity was designed to test the possibility of flight on Mars (NASA, 2021). Ingenuity’s job was to prove that flight is possible in the thin Martian atmosphere (Wall, M., 9 September 2022). Ingenuity was originally designed for only 5 flights (Witze, A., September 2022) and has surpassed everybody’s expectations by flying for the 32nd time on September 17, 2022.

As Ingenuity performed better than expected during the flight test, scientists decided to push Ingenuity’s limits and let it assist Perseverance in gathering data and specimen on signs of life on Mars. While Perseverance is busy collecting rock samples and looking for signs of life, Ingenuity is helping Perseverance scout for routes and identify rocks that will be beneficial to the research (Wall, M., 9 September 2022).

Ingenuity is now reunited with Perseverance on river delta inside the Jezero Crater. While Perseverance is collecting soil samples, Ingenuity is using its on board camera to find areas of interest to help scientists decide if Perseverance should explore there next (Mogg, T., September 2022).

While Ingenuity is taking flight, it sometimes stirs up a small dust cloud that will surround and follow it around (Witze, A., June 2021). This had taken scientists by surprise as they did not expect the dust to fly around the Martian atmosphere in this way. This resulted in an atmospheric experiment, as scientists are studying the way dusts interact with the helicopter to better understand the dynamics of the Martian atmosphere.

Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist at Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, is planning to compare the dust tracks left behind by Ingenuity with those left behind by dust devils. Studying the differences will help scientists better comprehend how dusts are being blown and spun into dust devils in Mars’ thin atmosphere.

Håvard Grip, Ingenuity’s chief pilot at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, stated that that Ingenuity’s success in flight testing is considered wildly successful. Ingenuity’s success paved the way for bigger helicopters to help scout out areas on Mars in the future.

As Jezero Crater enters winter, it is becoming increasingly challenging for Ingenuity to survive through the cold nights (Grip, H., June 2022). Due to the winter, contact with Ingenuity between May 3rd and 4th was lost due to insufficient battery at night, which was predicted to occur nightly, until September/October (Tzanetos, T., May 2022). As Mars has proved to be challenging for spacecrafts to survive, scientists are unable to predict how long Ingenuity will be able to survive. Due to the shorter day time, Ingenuity is unable to receive enough solar energy to power itself throughout the night, which resulted in it shutting down and clearing its mission clock. The cleared mission clock caused Ingenuity to wake up at the wrong time, resulting in an alarm schedule which is not in synchronization with Perseverance.

To fix this, Ingenuity will be shutting down every night to let the electronics reset. This new operation risks damaging the electronic components that are not meant to last in the cold weather, but it is necessary to ensure that Ingenuity has sufficient battery to wake up on time and transfer critical logs over to the team.

While testing out Ingenuity’s sensors, the team found out that the inclinometer has stopped functioning. The inclinometer is a navigation sensor is an important device during flight, but the loss of it does not mean Ingenuity’s mission has come to an end. For now, Ingenuity will be using other accelerometers to impersonate the inclinometer.

 

REFERENCES

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8659/alabama-high-school-student-names-nasas-mars-helicopter/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02968-2

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/#Quick-Facts

https://www.space.com/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-31st-flight-river-delta

https://www.digitaltrends.com/space/nasas-mars-helicopter-takes-longest-flight-since-long-break/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01537-3

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/382/ingenuity-adapts-for-mars-winter-operations/

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/385/keeping-our-sense-of-direction-dealing-with-a-dead-sensor/

 

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