NASA Ingenuity Summary and Readers Response Reupload

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. The final prototype for Ingenuity flew in a space simulator chamber inside the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which was programmed to imitate the Martian atmosphere (Aung, 2018).

According to NASA, Ingenuity’s main responsibility was not research, but to test and prove that flight is possible on Mars. While it is only 0.49 meters tall with a weight of 1.8kg, its 1.2 meters carbon-fiber rotors 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 in its first three flights, flying to higher altitudes of up to 5m and its flight duration increased from 39.1 seconds to 80.3 seconds. 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 15% 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 pictures, all without the support of Perseverance nearby. 

  

THESIS 

According to Gohd, Ingenuity is the first spacecraft to have flown on Mars. Even though Ingenuity’s battery life is not the most suitable for the mission, the helicopter is still ready for the 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 ion Mars’ thin atmosphere, Ingenuity’s carbon-fibre blades are arranged in two rotors, which will spin at 2400 rotations per minute in opposite directions (Schroeder, n.d.). The blades will spin at a speed that is ten times faster than what is needed on Earth (Clarke, 2018). According to Clarke, 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 five flights (Wall, 2022). This ensures that Ingenuity is ready for the mission as it has enough power to take flight in the thin Martian atmosphere.

 

SUPPORT 2 

Ingenuity is fitted with a solar panel mounted above the rotor blades that charges Lithium-ion batteries (Gohd, 2021). Gohd stated that after Ingenuity left rover, Perseverance, it must rely on its own solar panels to perform its tasks. According to Gohd, Ingenuity requires a high amount of energy 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, Gohd also claimed that Ingenuity has to ensure that it has sufficient energy to fly for 90 seconds per Martian day (sol). Instead of returning to Perseverance to charge nightly, Ingenuity can survive on its own because of the solar panels. In the same article, we learnt that 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’ in the cold atmosphere. This shows that Ingenuity is ready for the mission as it surpassed everyone’s expectations by performing more than what was expected of it independently.

SUPPORT 3 

Despite being a helicopter, Ingenuity has very unique landing gears to prepare itself for Mars’ sandy terrain. Instead of having a skid landing gear like most helicopters we see on Earth, Ingenuity comes with four 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, 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. This further shows how Ingenuity was ready for its mission as it can stand strong even during dust storms.

 

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, 2022). As a result, Ingenuity had to continue working during winter, which it was not prepared for due to the longer nights and shorter days (Strickland, 2022). During the colder nights, most of Ingenuity’s battery was used to keep itself warm to protect the electrical components. As a result, Ingenuity’s battery dropped below the limit and it was powered down (Agle, 2022). This resulted in Ingenuity’s clock being out of synchronization with Perseverance, which does not allow Ingenuity to communicate with Perseverance (Tzenetos, 2022). According to Tzanetos, 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 in its mission as it is only a test flight. It achieved its primary mission, which is to prove the possibility of flight on Mars.

References

 

Anonymous. (2020, October 19). NASA's ingenuity Mars Helicopter. American Scientist, 108(6), 330.

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

 

Clark, S. (2018, May 14). Helicopter to accompany NASA's Next Mars rover to Red Planet. Spaceflight Now. 

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

 

Wall, M. (2022, September 9). Ingenuity helicopter on Mars heads toward Ancient River Delta on 31st flight. Space.com. 

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

 

Gohd, C. (2021, May 2022). Mars helicopter ingenuity: First aircraft to fly on Red Planet. Space.com.  

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

 

Hille, K. (2015, September 18). The fact and fiction of Martian dust storms. NASA.  

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

 

Strickland, A. (2022, June 6). Mars ingenuity helicopter is on borrowed time as it endures winter. CNN.  

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/06/world/ingenuity-helicopter-mars-winter-scn/index.html  

 

NASA. (n.d.). NASA's ingenuity in contact with Perseverance Rover after communications dropout.

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/379/nasas-ingenuity-in-contact-with-perseverance-rover-after-communications-dropout/  

 

Tzanetos, T. (2022, May 27). Ingenuity Adapts for Mars Winter Operations. NASA Science Mars.  

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