NASA is about to release the results of the world’s first extraterrestrial aircraft accident investigation. The report will not only make history, but will also help authorities plan ahead for the next generation of vehicles that will help humans explore Mars.
NASA engineers had only planned for the Mars Perseverance rover’s Ingenuity helicopter to complete up to five experimental test flights in 30 days in 2021. However, the experimental machine turned out to be much more durable than expected. Over nearly three more years, Ingenuity ended up making more than 72 flights, accumulating more than two hours of air travel, and traveling 30 times the distance it had planned.
[Related: RIP Mars Ingenuity, the ‘little helicopter that could’]
However, the rotorcraft’s flight life ended on January 18, 2024, when a failed landing appeared to cause catastrophic damage to its blades. But what caused Ingenuity’s 72nd flight to go wrong remained a mystery to NASA. Since then, a joint research team from Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and AeroVironment has spent months analyzing the available evidence and data.
“When you investigate an accident from 100 million miles away, you don’t have a black box, you don’t have any witnesses,” Ingenuity’s first pilot, Herbert Gripp, said at JPL on Dec. 10. Report presentation.
Gripp explained that, given the data, there are multiple possible scenarios, but the team believes one explanation is the most likely for Ingenuity’s failed landing. In other words, the aircraft’s navigation system was unable to properly calculate the flight trajectory from the sparse information provided by the cameras during flight. on the relatively smooth surface of Mars.
credit: NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology
As JPL explains, the data examined indicates that the helicopter’s navigation system began to lack sufficient trackable surface attributes approximately 20 seconds after takeoff. Subsequent photo analysis suggests that a computer error at Ingenuity resulted in high horizontal velocities exceeding the design limits of the rotor blades. This caused all four blades to snap at their weakest points, and the resulting vibration tore the remaining blade from the helicopter. Excessive onboard power demands then knocked out Ingenuity’s communications array for about six days, causing it to crash and roll on the sands of Mars.
In some ways, Ingenuity’s demise is a testament to its resilience. NASA did not expect the helicopter to fly to a specific area of Jezero Crater on January 18th. Instead of navigating rocky terrain with lots of visual adjustment cues, as originally designed, Ingenuity attempted to handle areas of steep, relatively featureless sand ripples. I had no choice but to do it.
Despite all this, Ingenuity is not completely dead. Since engineers helped re-establish the link from Earth, the crashed helicopter’s computer has been regularly transmitting avionics and weather data to the Perseverance rover. This information could one day help human astronauts reach Mars.
Meanwhile, NASA is leveraging all this knowledge to advance plans for future Mars aircraft, some of which could be 20 times heavier than Ingenuity. On December 11th, team members mars chopper The rotorcraft project could autonomously explore as much as two miles of Mars per day while transporting several pounds of equipment. For comparison, Ingenuity flew approximately 2,310 feet on its longest flight.
However, scaling up is not always necessary. Apart from Mars Chopper, engineers are also working on designing a vehicle that is smaller and lighter than Ingenuity’s 4-pound, 19-inch-tall frame. Ingenuity project manager Teddy Tsanetos said the aircraft’s longevity and accomplishments show how tough small packages can be on Mars.
“We are now approaching four years of continuous operations, which shows that not everything has to be bigger, heavier and more radiation-hardened to operate in the harsh environment of Mars. “It suggests,” he said.
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