NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Designed By IIT Alumni Is Going To Make History

While China¡¯s rover launch to Mars might have created quite a buzz last week, this week its NASA¡¯s chance to write a new chapter in Mars exploration with the Mars Mission 2020.

NASA is going to blast off the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter (designed by IIT Alumnus Bob Balram) to Mars on July 30, scheduled to touchdown on Mars in February 2021.

NASA

The rover and helicopter are equipped with state of the art hardware that are going to help humans decipher the mysteries of life on Mars. And like most of us, people are curious about how they plan to achieve it. Yesterday, NASA experts held an AMA (AskMeAnything) on Reddit where it answered several questions regarding the hardware and the mission, and we¡¯ve picked some cool ones for you.

Ingenuity Helicopter Testing on Mars

Havard Grip, Mars Helicopter Chief Pilot, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained how they tested the helicopter to fly in Martian atmosphere, while on Earth, ¡°Much of the testing was done in the 25-ft Space Simulator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is a large vacuum chamber where we can replicate the Martian atmosphere. That allowed us to incrementally build confidence in our models of how the helicopter would behave in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and also perform actual flight tests.¡±

He added, ¡°The extremely thin atmosphere of Mars (around 1% of the density on Earth) means that we can generate much less lift with the same-size rotor compared to Earth. For that reason, we needed to make the rotor unusually large compared to the rest of the helicopter, and we need to spin it as fast as we can without getting too close to the speed of sound at the blade tips. He also had to make the blades extremely light and stiff to be able to safely control the helicopter in the thin atmosphere. ¡°

NASA

Surviving Mars dust storms

Mars is completely different from Earth in numerous ways. And its surface is known to come across dust storms (something you might have seen in The Martian played by Matt Damon). Roger Wiens, SuperCam PI busted this myth for us, ¡° The NASA Mars Ingenuity helicopter is designed to operate on Mars for about 30 days. We do not expect a dust storm to come up during its operation. Dust storms usually happen in the southern-hemisphere spring or summertime, and the mission will start in the northern hemisphere spring.¡±

He added, ¡°If a dust storm were to happen, the main effect is that the sky would become quite dark--it wouldn't be much more windy and the helicopter would not be pelted with sand. Those just happen in science fiction! The dust is so fine that it mostly just darkens the sky somewhat. Since Ingenuity is solar-powered, it would mean that it would take a little longer for it to charge its batteries before the next flight.¡±

How Mars Ingenuity helicopter differs from a drone?

Harvard explains that since it is designed to fly in a different atmosphere, there are massive changes to the mechanics, ¡°Ingenuity is designed differently from drones on Earth to be able to fly in the extremely thin atmosphere on Mars (approximately 1% of the density on Earth). That means the proportions are different; in particular, the 1.2 m diameter rotor is large compared to the entire helicopter, which weighs only 1.8 kg.¡±

He added that they've made use of several lightweight materials like carbon fibre for its blades and feet. It is also capable of withstanding extreme cold temperatures thanks to better insulation along with onboard heaters to protect electronics, it also powers itself from solar energy.

NASA

Is NASA Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Autonomous?

When we have auto-pilot cars and aircraft now, it is only obvious to expect these vehicles are autonomous too, being millions of miles away. Havard Grip explained, ¡°Ingenuity has to be fully autonomous during the flight itself, since the time delay is too great for the helicopter to be controlled in real-time during flight from Earth. However, the helicopter does not plan its own flights; we do the planning on Earth, and upload sequences with commands that describe what to do for each flight.¡±

He added, that NASA pilots send way-point commands that direct the copter to fly in a certain direction. The helicopter also has its own algorithms, to process camera images instantly to understand its movement and control itself accordingly.

What is Ingenuity trying to accomplish on Mars?

According to Harvard, ¡°Ingenuity is what we call a *technology demonstration* - the purpose of sending it to Mars is to demonstrate our capability to fly helicopters there, which will lay the groundwork for potentially using helicopters in future Mars missions. For that reason, Ingenuity doesn't carry science instruments; however, it does carry two cameras - one for navigation and another one for taking high-resolution colour images. We expect to download some of these for viewing on Earth.¡±