Ingenuity Flies on Mars

Ingenuity, the Mars Helicopter designed and built by JPL, was taken to Mars attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover, which descended on Mars on February 18. Most probably, it will attempt its first “powered, controlled flight” on April 8 which will actually require a series of radical milestones; as planned, it will take 6 sols or 6 days and 4 hours, for its first deployment to launch the 30-sol flight on Mars. A Martian day is called “sol” which is approximately 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth; in fact, the Planet has a very similar daily cycle to the Earth in which its every solar day equals to 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds.

Now, the Rover is on its way to the airfield, the spot where the helicopter will start its flight and after being deployed it will have 30 Martian days to do its test flight campaign. Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters states that “Aptly named, Ingenuity is a technology demonstration that aims to be the first powered flight on another world and, if successful, could further expand our horizons and broaden the scope of what is possible with Mars exploration.” Ingenuity is defined as “skill at inventing things and thinking of new ideas” by Longman dictionary.

Since Mars has about one-third of Earth’s gravity, flying in a controlled way will be somehow difficult; however, the density of its atmosphere is 1% at the surface, just like the Earth’s; temperature also highly varies in day and nighttime in a way that during nighttime it is about minus 90 degrees Celsius which can freeze or cause a crack in any unprotected electrical device. In fact, ingenuity has been specially designed to survive all the hard conditions predicted and studied by the related team. Up until now, it has been protected by the rover, Persy, but after getting deployed, its real mission starts. Bob Balaram, Mars Helicopter chief engineer at JPL stated that “Every step we have taken since this journey began six years ago has been uncharted territory in the history of aircraft, … And while getting deployed to the surface will be a big challenge, surviving that first night on Mars alone, without the rover protecting it and keeping it powered, will be an even bigger one.”

Farah Alibay, the Helicopter integration lead explains further that “As with everything with the helicopter, this type of deployment has never been done before…. Once we start the deployment there is no turning back. All activities are closely coordinated, irreversible, and dependent on each other. If there is even a hint that something isn’t going as expected, we may decide to hold off for a sol or more until we have a better idea what is going on.” The team and the engineers are very confident and hopeful to succeed in their set ambitious goal: watching Mars through Ingenuity glasses.

A Review on Perseverance, The Robotic Vehicle

Perseverance, the carrier and holder of Mars helicopter, is actually the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever sent to another world. Persy, its nickname, landed on Mars after a dramatic descent on Feb 18, 2021, which aims to search for ancient signs of life and collect astrobiology samples. It sailed through the space for almost 7 months and finally, after passing 472m KM (293m Miles) with an average speed of 19,000 Km/h (12000 mph), it landed nearly in the middle of the landing zone inside Jezero crater north of the planet’s equator, (which billions of years ago is believed to have housed a Martian lake bed), with the help of a parachute, booster rockets and a sky crane. Its mission name is MARS 2020 as it was launched in July 30, 2020.

Ingenuity Flies on Mars

Robi B