Summary/Reader Response Draft #1

On February 18, 2021, helicopter Ingenuity, landed on Jezero Crater, Mars, along with rover, Perseverance (Gohd, 2021). Ingenuity is the first aircraft to have flown on Mars. According to Mimi Aung, Ingenuity’s project manager at NASA, Ingenuity had been fully tested on Earth before the Mars mission.

Ingenuity’s main responsibility was not research, but to test and prove that flight is possible on Mars. It is a small helicopter equipped with carbon-fiber rotors that measure 1.2 meters across. Its blades can spin up to 2500 revolutions per minute. Ingenuity faced several challenges during its mission, such as attempting flight in Mars' thin atmosphere and dealing with wind and dust storms as well as getting enough energy for survival.

Ingenuity succeeded the first three flights, flying to higher altitudes and for longer durations subsequently. However, on its fourth flight attempt, Ingenuity failed to shift to "flight mode" due to software issues, which was fixed with a software rewrite. However, even after the fix, there was still a chance of a repeat of the incident.

As the flight mission was going better than expected, Ingenuity had been tasked with finding new flight locations and taking picture, all without the support of Perseverance nearby.

 

THESIS

Ingenuity is the first spacecraft to have flown on Mars. Even though Ingenuity’s battery life is not the most suitable for the mission, it is still ready for mission as it has been equipped with 4 carbon-fibre blades, solar panels to recharge its battery as well as 4 carbon-fibre legs to balance itself on the planet (NASA, n.d.).

SUPPORT 1

To ensure that Ingenuity can take flight on Mars’ thin atmosphere, Ingenuity’s carbon-fibre blades are arranged in 2 rotors, which will spin at 2400 rotations per minute in opposite directions. The blades will spin at a speed that is 10 times faster than what is needed on Earth (Clarke, S., 2018). It is necessary to spin the blades at such high speed to ensure successful take off on Mars, which has atmosphere that is 1% as dense as the atmosphere on Earth. The carbon-fibre blades have contributed greatly to the success of the mission as Ingenuity has flown for the 31st time on September 6, 2022, even though it was originally designed for only 5 flights (Wall, M., 2022).

SUPPORT 2

Ingenuity is fitted with a solar panel mounted above the rotor blades that charges Lithium-ion batteries (Gohd, C., 2021). After Ingenuity left rover, Perseverance, it must rely on its own solar panels to perform its tasks. Ingenuity requires a high amount of energy in order to complete daily tasks such as charging its battery, communicating with the International Space Station as well as keep itself warm to protect its electrical components from spoiling. Furthermore, Ingenuity has to ensure that it has sufficient energy to fly for 90 seconds per Martian day (sol). Despite the limited amount of power it has, Ingenuity managed to surpass everyone’s expectations and flew for 117 seconds during its fourth flight. Ingenuity has also managed to keep itself warm during the cold nights, proving that the energy it received through the solar panels are sufficient to keep itself ‘alive’.

SUPPORT 3

Despite being a helicopter, Ingenuity has very different landing gears as compared to helicopters we spot on Earth. Instead of having a skid landing gear like most helicopters we see on Earth, Ingenuity comes with 4 landing legs. Even on Earth, helicopters with skid landing gears refrain from taking off and landing downwind as it interferes with the amount of energy the helicopter needs to fly, which can prevent the helicopter from landing safely. Mars is famous for having strong dust storms which can be seen from telescopes on Earth (Mersmann, K., 2017). Since Ingenuity does not take off and land with human control, it has a 4-legged landing gear which will help to stabilise it for landing to prevent it from falling over due to wind.

COUNTER

However, Ingenuity’s battery capacity proved to be a problem for the mission. Since Ingenuity performed better than expected, its mission has been updated from 5 flight tests to scouting for new routes and assist Perseverance in its research mission (Wall, M., September 2022). As a result, Ingenuity had to continue working during winter, instead of taking a break inside Perseverance. Ingenuity was not prepared for winter as the shorter day time leads to its solar panels not receiving enough energy to power itself throughout the day. During the colder nights, most of Ingenuity’s battery are used to keep itself warm in order to protect the electrical components. As a result, Ingenuity’s battery dropped below the limit and it was powered down (Agle, D., 2022). This resulted in Ingenuity’s clock being out of synchronization with Perseverance, which does not allow Ingenuity to communicate with Perseverance (Tzanetos, T., 2022). However, to fix this, Ingenuity has been shutting down every night to ensure that it will wake up at the correct time and transfer critical logs over to the team.

CONCLUSION

Even though Ingenuity’s battery capacity is not the best suited for a winter mission, Ingenuity still succeeded as it is only a test flight. It achieved its primary mission, which is to prove the possibility of flight on Mars.

REFERENCES

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/05/14/helicopter-to-accompany-nasas-next-mars-rover-to-red-planet/

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

https://www.space.com/ingenuity-mars-helicopter-perseverance-rover

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/the-fact-and-fiction-of-martian-dust-storms

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

 

 

 

 

 


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