NASA is set to send its Perseverance rover to Mars later this year. Accompanying this will be a helicopter that is gunning for the title of being the first aircraft to fly on a planet other than Earth. It turns out, the helicopter is the brainchild of an Indian Institute of Technology alumnus named Bob Balaram.
Currently at the Kennedy Space Center, having successfully undergone its last round of testing, the helicopter will be taking its next flight in the Martian skies. If and when successful, the flight will mark a new era for human beings, a victory over the skies of other planets with drastically different atmospheric conditions than Earth¡¯s.
It is understandable that the task at hand is not an easy challenge. But the story behind the piece of machine that will attempt the seemingly impossible is no less of an inspiration either. To have an idea of it, know that Balram has been pursuing the idea for more than two decades.
Balram first came across the idea of such a helicopter during a professional conference. During the conference, Stanford professor Ilan Kroo, a veteran in robotics technology, spoke about a miniature airborne vehicle for Earth applications called "mesicopter." That is when Balram thought of using the same on a place like Mars.
Following on the idea, Balram came up with a joint proposal with Stanford for a NASA Research Announcement submission. He even recruited a small company in Simi Valley, California, called AeroVironment for the same.
At the time, the idea only resulted in a blade-rotor test under Mars conditions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA. No further engagement was carried out on it for the next 15 years.
Years later, Charles Elachi, former director of JPL, stumbled upon the idea of using a drone on Mars. He was then introduced to Balram post which, creating a concept for Balram¡¯s helicopter became a point of focus for NASA for its 2020 mission to Mars. Note that the concept was only meant for technology development and risk reduction at the time.
Mimi Aung became the manager of the Mars Helicopter project and got the team working on its risk reduction. Once that was cracked, NASA funded the helicopter for flight as a technology demonstration.
Post the funding, the helicopter was planned, developed and built by the team with Balram working as the expert on it. As Aung mentions in a recent report, ¡°Bob is the inventor of our Mars Helicopter. He innovated the design and followed up on that vision to its fruition as chief engineer through all phases of design, development and test."
She further complements the genius of the IIT alumnus, "Whenever we encountered a technical roadblock -- and we encountered many roadblocks -- we always turned to Bob, who always carries an inexhaustible set of potential solutions to be considered. Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever seen Bob feeling stuck at any point!"
The helicopter is ready for take off on the Martian atmosphere now but it has not been an easy journey for Balram. He recalls the challenges faced during its development, the biggest one being able to create a helicopter that flies in an atmosphere with 1% density as that of earth.
He described the construction of the chopper as a perfectly blank canvas, but with restrictions. To envision the task, he compares the Martian conditions to flying on Earth at a 100,000-foot (30,500-meter) altitude.
In addition to this, another major challenge was the limited weight that the copter could carry, which also included the weight of its own batteries and radio for communications.
Taking all this into account, Balram decided to create a completely new aircraft from scratch, one that behaves like a spacecraft. By the end, he was able to come up with a 1.8-kilogram helicopter with two pairs of light counter-rotating blades spanning across 1.2 meters in diameter. One pair was placed higher than the other and together, the two pairs would be able to lift the helicopter in the air on Mars.
The challenge did not end there, as the team now had to come up with a way to test it. That was seemingly impossible on Earth given the gigantic difference in atmospheric density than that on Mars.
To overcome this, the team decided to test the helicopter in a vacuum chamber and the 25-foot Space Simulation Chamber at JPL.
Even though the helicopter has completed its testing successfully, it is not a 100% guarantee that it will work just as planned. As per Balram, there will be a risk at every flight that the helicopter takes on the Red planet.
Just as the risks, the rewards are enormous too. If the helicopter operates successfully on Mars, it will be "kind of a Wright Brothers moment on another planet" as per Balram. It will be a first for humans in the history of mankind and a pretty big one at that! In fact, this might pave the way for humans to create aircrafts for any planet other than Earth.
So as the United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket takes off for Mars later this year, many across the world will have their fingers crossed for a successful mission. After all, this will undoubtedly mark a huge step for mankind in its pursuit to spread to other planets in the galaxy.