The Ingenuity mini-Mars helicopter detaches from the Trailblazer Mars Exploration Rover for a test flight at the “airport.
On Monday, April 5, NASA announced that the Ingenuity mini-Mars helicopter had successfully landed on the surface of Mars in preparation for the first powered and controlled flight off Earth.
On the same day, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Jet PropulsionLaboratory) also tweeted, “Mars Helicopter landing confirmed! It completed its final 10 cm descent from Trail’s belly today and successfully landed on the surface of Mars, ending its 471 million km shared voyage with this Mars Exploration Rover.” The tweet was accompanied by a photo showing Trailblazer moving away from the landed Innovation and its test flight “airfield.
According to media reports, the Mars Exploration Rover Perseverance landed on Mars on Feb. 18, with the ultra-lightweight 1.8-kilogram Innovation bolted to Perseverance’s belly and powered by its electrical system. Once the Innovation is detached from Perseverance, it will need to rely on its own batteries to keep its own heaters operating so that the unprotected electronic parts on board do not freeze or burst in the cold of the Martian night.
In a message updated Sunday, Bob Balaram, chief engineer of the Innovation team, said the temperature at night on Mars can reach as low as minus 90 degrees Celsius. The heater keeps the interior of the helicopter at 7 degrees Celsius to survive the cold of the Martian night. That temperature is enough to protect the batteries and some of the more delicate electronic parts from damage in very cold temperatures.
Balarem also said the Innovation team will check the solar panels for proper operation in the coming days, and will recharge its batteries in preparation for testing its engines and sensors before the first flight. He said, “No aircraft has ever flown on another planet.”
Balarem revealed that Innovation will carry the fabric that covered one of the wings of the plane used by the Wright brothers when they completed the first powered flight on Earth in 1903, in tribute to that milestone.
According to a tweet from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Innovation is expected to attempt its first flight after the 11th of this month, and it will have 30 Martian days on the mission, the equivalent of 31 Earth days.
Due to the Mars atmosphere density of only 1% of the Earth, Innovation will be more difficult to take off, but the gravity of Mars is only 1/3 of the Earth, will also help reduce its lift-off difficulty.
It is reported that the first flight of Innovation will try to climb to 3 meters per second at a speed of about 1 meter, hover for 30 seconds and then land on the ground. During the flight, high-resolution photos will be taken. Up to five flights of gradually increasing difficulty have been scheduled for this month.
The Innovation was developed at a cost of $80 million and took three years to build, and was specifically designed and built for Mars conditions, so it cannot fly on Earth. Its landing legs are so flexible that they won’t break when it hits the ground, even if it bounces. Many of the components it uses (such as motors and computers) have also been miniaturized, making it lighter in weight. It can also combine commands to fly with data from sensors and onboard cameras, processing a large number of images and data captured by cameras (30 images/second) and sensors. And it can automatically adjust the flight direction and speed, etc. according to wind speed or other hazardous conditions.
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