NASA’s Mars helicopter experiences in

Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California hang received the first dwelling portray from the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which landed Feb. 18, 2021, at Jezero Crater hooked as a lot as the belly of the company’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The downlink, which arrived at 3: 30 p.m. PST (6: 30 p.m. EST) by means of a connection thru the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, indicates that both the helicopter, which will remain hooked as a lot as the rover for 30 to 60 days, and its injurious station (an electrical box on the rover that retail outlets and routes communications between the rotorcraft and Earth) are working as expected.

“There are two enormous-impress items we are procuring for in the data: the speak of payment of Ingenuity’s batteries to boot to confirmation the injurious station is working as designed, commanding heaters to blow their own horns and on to reduction the helicopter’s electronics internal an expected fluctuate,” acknowledged Tim Canham, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter operations lead at JPL. “Each seem to be working colossal. With this particular portray, we are able to transfer forward with the next day’s payment of the helicopter’s batteries.”

Making sure that Ingenuity has hundreds of kept energy aboard to reduction heating and other crucial capabilities while additionally striking forward optimum battery nicely being is the most critical to the success of the Mars Helicopter. The one-hour energy-up will boost the rotorcraft’s batteries to about 30% of its total capacity. Just a few days after that, they’re going to be charged all over again to attain 35%, with future charging durations deliberate weekly while the helicopter is attached to the rover. The details downlinked one day of the next day’s payment durations will be when put next with battery-charging durations done one day of cruise to Mars to reduction the team contrivance future charging durations.

Admire principal of the 4-pound (2-kilogram) rotorcraft, the six lithium-ion batteries are off-the-shelf. They presently receive recharges from the rover’s energy provide. As soon as Ingenuity is deployed to Mars’ surface, the helicopter’s batteries will be charged entirely by its hang photo voltaic panel.

After Perseverance deploys Ingenuity to the surface, the helicopter will then hang a 30-Martian-day (31-Earth-day) experimental flight test window. If Ingenuity survives its first bone-chilling Martian nights—the save temperatures dip as little as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius) – the team will proceed with the first flight of an plane on one other world.

If Ingenuity succeeds in taking off and hovering one day of its first flight, over 90% of the project’s targets will hang been achieved. If the rotorcraft lands successfully and remains operable, as a lot as four extra flights will be tried, every body building on the success of the last.

“We are in uncharted territory, but this team is aged to that,” acknowledged MiMi Aung, project manager for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at JPL. “Upright about every milestone from here thru the discontinue of our flight demonstration program will be a essential, and each has to be triumphant for us to transfer on to the next. We will like this true recordsdata for the 2d, but then we hang to fetch reduction to work.”

Subsequent-generation rotorcraft, the descendants of Ingenuity, may per chance well presumably add an aerial dimension to future exploration of the Crimson Planet. These evolved robotic flying vehicles would provide a diversified perspective no longer equipped by most up-to-date orbiters high overhead or by rovers and landers on the bottom, providing high-definition photography and reconnaissance for robots or folk, and enable entry to terrain that’s sophisticated for rovers to attain.