Ingenuity, the little Martian helicopter could do it, but it can’t do it anymore.
NASA officials announced Thursday that at least one rotor broke during the robotic flying machine’s most recent flight last week. Ingenuity remains in contact with his partner, the rover Perseverance, searching for signs of extinct Martian life in dried-up riverbeds.
Ingenuity is now left behind.
“It’s bittersweet to finally have to announce that Ingenuity, the little helicopter that can do that, has made its final flight on Mars, after all these years of saying, ‘I think we can do it, we think we can do it.'” said Bill Nelson. NASA administrator announced. Video message posted on X.
Ingenuity arrived on Mars in February 2021 aboard the undercarriage of the Perseverance rover. The helicopter is an afterthought to the mission and is a low-cost, high-risk, high-reward technology demonstration using many off-the-shelf components to provide critical capabilities. During its 72 flights through Earth’s thin atmosphere, it taught lessons for future mission designers.
“They will believe in what we have achieved,” Ingenuity project manager Theodore Tzanetos said at a press conference Thursday night. “They can point to the fact that a 2015 cell phone processor can withstand the radiation environment of Mars for two and a half years. Commercially available commercially available lithium-ion battery cells can last two and a half years. This is a huge win for engineers around NASA.”
On April 19, 2021, Ingenuity became the first plane or helicopter to take off on another planet, with the aircraft’s rotors spinning 2,400 times per minute, allowing it to fly in an atmosphere only 1/100th as dense as Earth’s. generated lift. NASA officials called the flight a “Wright Brothers moment” in planetary exploration.
The plan at the time was to demonstrate this new technology in five flights over 30 days.
Perseverance then left Ingenuity to begin studying ancient sedimentary rocks along the rim of Jezero Crater, where a lake of water existed billions of years ago.
The ingenuity paid off on five flights, and it worked so well that mission managers decided to bring a helicopter along to scout the terrain in front of the rover. For the next thousand days, Ingenuity rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell again and again. Trouble occurred during the flight and the plane had to make emergency landings three times. It withstood dust storms and the cold Martian winter, but the aircraft wasn’t designed for that. Engineers upgraded the software to allow Ingenuity to choose its own landing site.
“To say we exceeded expectations would be an understatement,” said Lori Glaze, deputy administrator for NASA’s Science Directorate.
The helicopter team was initially preparing for what they called a 30-day sprint. It became an open-ended marathon. Tsanetos said he knew every day could be his last. But the helicopter always seemed to bounce back from any challenge and stay on track.
Aside from one non-essential sensor failing, “the rest of the subsystems, from the solar panels to the batteries, are significantly older,” Tsanetos said. “Our electronics, avionics and processors all appear to be working fine.”
On January 18, during its 72nd flight, Ingenuity lost contact with Perseverance during descent. Communications were resumed the next day, but a few days later it was revealed from photographs returned that about a quarter of one rotor blade had been broken off.
“The first moment, obviously, was a moment of sadness when that photo came down and appeared on the screen, and that confirms what happened,” Tsanetos said. “But that was quickly replaced with feelings of happiness and pride and celebration for what we had accomplished.”
Tsanetos noted that Thursday night marks the 1,000th Martian day, also known as Sol, since Ingenuity was dropped on the surface of Mars by Perseverance.
“She chose a very appropriate time to finish her mission here,” he said.
Ingenuity was flying over what Tsanetos described as “some of the most difficult terrain.” This was not because of any obstacles, but because the terrain was very bland, with few rocks or other features. The previous flight ended in an emergency landing because the navigation system was unable to track the location.
The 72nd flight was scheduled for a 30-second up-and-down flight to ensure everything was working, but once again the bland terrain caused problems. “Due to navigational challenges, the rotor hit the ground,” Tzanetos said. “That would have caused a power outage and communications failure.”
If at least part of one of the blades breaks, the helicopter will not be able to generate enough lift, the rotors will become unbalanced, and the helicopter may shake and break apart when it tries to take off again.
“This has some lessons for us,” said Ingenuity’s chief pilot, Hubbard Gripp. “We know that such terrain can be a trap for systems like this.”
Dr. Grip said a higher resolution camera, which could capture more detail in even bland landscapes, probably would have helped.
The Ingenuity team will perform some final tests on Ingenuity’s systems, downloading images and data that remain in the helicopter’s memory.
NASA engineers are investigating the cause of the communications loss and whether Ingenuity’s rotor blades hit the ground during landing.
Future Mars helicopters are in the planning stages, including several that could accompany Perseverance on missions to return to Earth the rock and soil samples it collects. But the Mars sample mission is being reconsidered after facing technical and budgetary challenges, and the helicopter could be dropped.
“The ingenuity was based on theory,” Tsanetos said. “Now that we know the facts, future aircraft designs will depend on all the data we collect through our ingenuity.”