Neither of two coming missions to Mars, ExoMars 2022 and a sample return mission, planned by Nasa and Esa, currently have on-board helicopters. Although these images will be limited, they will still help Perseverance to build up a better picture of its surrounds. Each flight will be as nail-biting as the first – and each will provide new views of the local environment of Jezero crater, where it is located. Ingenuity doesn’t have the rear rotor blades of a conventional helicopter for “steering” – and, as mentioned, commands cannot be given in real time. Progress has to be cautious – new hazards will become apparent as the helicopter moves – when wind speed and direction join atmospheric pressure as issues to be addressed. The flight is also the harbinger of things to come: Nasa has planned several more flights of increasing complexity to take place over the next two weeks.
Just achieving such a rapid spin rate for the two one-metre long blades was a significant advance in propulsion technology. But even so, Ingenuity’s blades had to rotate about 2400 times per minute to provide the required lift for the two-kilo craft. The reduced gravity of Mars (about one-third that of Earth) helped to offset the effect of the much lower atmospheric pressure (about six millibar). On Earth, with an average air pressure of 1000 millibar, a helicopter blade spins at a rate of between 400 and 500 rotations per minute. The rotating blades of a helicopter provide the lift required – the faster the blades spin, the more lift is generated. Flight requires lift – there is a well known relationship between the weight of an aircraft and the difference in atmospheric pressure between its upper and lower surfaces which provides this lift. What is the importance of Ingenuity’s maiden flight? Above anything, it is a technology and engineering achievement. Admittedly, this flight by the Wright brothers moved forwards about 40 metres – but was at a similar height off the ground as was Ingenuity. But those 40 seconds have a similar level of significance as the first successful powered flight on Earth – which lasted only about 12 seconds.
It was in the air for about 40 seconds in total. Ingenuity rose about three metres above the ground before landing again. The first flight on Mars was not quite as adventurous as could be imagined – no soaring across the desolate landscape taking images of craters and sand dunes. But it was sufficient for the engineers in mission control to clap and cheer. This, of course, is space-talk for: “We are incredibly happy, everything has gone well.” A few minutes later, we saw the data – a rather unprepossessing graph. Just after 12:00 BST, a Nasa engineer announced to mission control that “all data sets are nominal”. Given the issue with the time delay between Mars and Earth, all the commands to operate Ingenuity had to be sent in advance – and so the engineers had to be certain that their command sequences were error free.Īll the planning and calculations paid off.
MARS HELICOPTER INGENUITY SOFTWARE
The flight had already been postponed because of software problems. This is the type of situation that Nasa’s engineers did not wish to experience on the maiden flight of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars on April 19.Īnd luckily they didn’t. You cannot take evasive or corrective action if anything goes wrong. It takes 20 minutes for your command to reach the planet – and the pictures you see of what is happening are 20 minutes old. Now imagine that you are flying your drone on a planet 180 million kilometres away. Finally it’s in the air, moving at speed above sand dunes, hills and valleys – sending back pictures as the landscape unfolds. You quickly move the joystick and the drone rises to fly above the obstruction. Your helicopter rises, hovers, then at the next command moves forward. You watch, then push the control for lift. The rotors start to turn, gradually increasing their spin.
Imagine that you are flying a model helicopter or a drone.
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