Major engineering hurdles arose in building a helicopter to fly to Mars.
Washington:
NASA said Thursday that its Mars robot helicopter Ingenuity, the first vehicle to achieve powered, controlled flight on another world, has been grounded for good after flying dozens of times over three years, ending a historic mission. Which has far exceeded all expectations.
NASA officials said Ingenuity’s fate was sealed when imagery returned to Earth on Jan. 18 after its 72nd and final flight. NASA officials said a portion of one of the miniature Whirligig’s twin rotor blades had broken off, rendering it incapable of further operation.
NASA said, “It’s bittersweet that I have to announce that Ingenuity is the ‘little helicopter that can’ – and it kept saying, ‘I think I can, I think I can.’ Can’ – well, it has now made its last flight to Mars.” Administrator Bill Nelson said in a video posted on social media.
What was planned as a 30-day technology demonstration over five short flights far exceeded the expectations of the engineers who designed and built the helicopter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles.
Ingenuity ultimately flew into the Martian terrain 14 times farther than originally planned, flying for more than two hours, eight minutes and covering a distance of 10.5 miles (17 km) through all 72 flybys. Its peak height was measured at 78.7 feet (24 m).
The rotorcraft were transported to the Red Planet strapped to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover, which had landed on the floor of a giant Martian basin called Jerez Crater three years earlier on a separate mission primarily intended for return to Earth. To collect surface samples. ,
Martian Wright Brothers moment
When the 4-pound (1.8-kg) rotor craft made its modest, first takeoff and landing in the thin Martian atmosphere on April 19, 2021 – a 39-second flight – it was hailed as a fundamental achievement of interplanetary aviation.
NASA compared Ingenuity’s achievement in the Jerez Crater to the Wright brothers’ historic first controlled flight of a motorized airplane in December 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Over time, JPL continued to send the helicopter on progressively more ambitious flights, advancing its capabilities.
According to Teddy Zanetos, JPL’s Ingenuity project manager, JPL teams began flying Ingenuity over a particularly barren, featureless area of Mars to test the limits of an auto-navigational system that provides aviation guidance. Depending on the sights visible to.
The US space agency said Ingenuity made an “emergency landing” during its final flight on January 6, apparently going down more abruptly than planned due to navigational disorientation.
When JPL controllers tried to perform a short, vertical flight 12 days later to determine Ingenuity’s location, data showed it lifted off the ground, hovered briefly, before losing contact with the rover. Began to descend, which serves as its communication relay with Earth.
Zanetos told reporters that photographs sent by the helicopter a few days later captured the shadow of its damaged rotor blade, which apparently broke during its final touchdown.
Engineers believe that guidance difficulties arising from the “blue” terrain where Ingenuity was flying led to a loss of balance, causing the vehicle to suddenly tilt or move sideways, resulting in the rotors hitting the surface, Tzenetos. he said.
Ingenuity, resembling a box with four legs and a canopy of rotor blades and solar panels, will remain dormant in its final days, but will periodically emit blips of data before losing contact with the rover as Perseverance moves away. .
Nevertheless, NASA officials celebrated Ingenuity’s exploits as paving the way for a new way of aerial exploration of Mars and elsewhere in the solar system, such as Saturn’s moon Titan, for which a rotor called Dragonfly -Craft is under development.
Major engineering hurdles arose in building a helicopter to fly to Mars.
While Mars has much less gravity than Earth to overcome, its atmosphere is only 1% denser, making it particularly difficult to achieve aerodynamic lift. Thus, Ingenuity was fitted with rotor blades that are larger and rotate much faster than would be required for a craft similar to its size on Earth.
The small, light vehicle also faced bitter cold, with night temperatures dropping to 130 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (minus 90 Celsius).
NASA said engineers will conduct final tests on Ingenuity and download the remaining images from its onboard computer.
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