NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Is Changing Space Exploration Forever

 

the perseverance rover is on mars  we think that the first man or woman on  mars is somewhere between 8 and 18 years  old  as we speak right now but here on earth  preparations are underway for the highly  touted first  manned mission to the red planet but the  expanse of the red planet is a lot of  ground to cover  the solution the skies here are the  exploration drones that will help us  colonize mars  welcome to fact nominal today we're  mapping an alien landscape in  mars exploration drones  why it's important nasa has a protocol  for exploring a previously unvisited  object in the solar system  flyby orbits land and then rove  the addition of a drone adds a fifth  protocol into that list  fly it makes perfect sense to have two  robots working together to find out as  much as possible about mars before we  send people there  one digs through the dirt and focuses on  the microscopic  while the other ranges out at distance  rovers have a tough time navigating  volcanic terrains due to the folds in  the newly formed rock  but a drone would be able to get up  close and personal with these areas  and even collect samples of the  hydrothermal systems  that could even preserve or support  microbial life  the scientific output of the dual  mission would be maximized  as it's not easy to get these gizmos to  mars  what we have the mission to deliver the  perseverance rover onto the martian  surface has a little stowaway on board  attached to the belly of the rover is an  aptly named ingenuity  clinging on for the ride like a cute  little baby koala  the ingenuity is an experimental mini  copter  able to be powered by the sun for as  long as its onboard solar  panels last it'll be a good test of  whether or not propeller driven flight  is possible  on a world other than earth especially  one with so little atmosphere  mars has less than one percent the  atmospheric density of earth  while the perseverance is rummaging  around in the surface soil looking for  signs of fossilized light  the ingenuity will be testing out  whether there is a faster way to scout  out this new world  that doesn't involve tracks moving at a  snail's pace  this maiden flight will take place  during the martian spring sometime this  year  a 30-day window of fine weather that  will provide optimum conditions for the  experiment  well at least for mars anyway the first  flight is a simple systems check  where the mini copter will rise a few  feet off the ground hover for 30 seconds  and then land  nice and easy pending the outcome of the  initial pre-flight test  and whether powered flight is even  possible in the lack of atmosphere on  mars  the drone will perform additional test  flights  these flights will take the drone to  incrementally further distances each  time  as well as slightly higher altitudes to  see what's really possible  current projections indicate that the  drone is capable of up to 90 seconds of  fly time  and may be able to achieve a distance of  almost 1 000 feet  while staying 10 feet from the ground to  put it into perspective  the wright brothers flew only 120 feet  in 12 seconds  we've come so far this prototype drone  just like its cousins that have roamed  the surface of mars before it  is built to be extremely lightweight  while still being incredibly strong and  durable  the dual rotor style propellers come in  four feet  each tip to tip they are arranged on top  of each other for maximum lift instead  of side by side for stability  the four carbon fiber blades will spin  in opposite directions at 2400 rpm  a speed many times faster than that  needed to achieve liftoff on earth  the blades will have to work hard to get  enough friction and grip on the thin  one percent atmosphere and get up off  the ground  lithium ion batteries are fed by a small  solar panel atop the rotors that will be  able to generate and store enough energy  for one ninety second flight per day  an average flight will use up to 350  watts of power  it's small enough to tuck away beneath  the perseverance under a protective  cover during transit  weighing just four pounds once on the  surface the shield falls away and the  drone is carefully deployed stage by  stage  before detaching from its umbilicus and  unceremoniously dropped onto the ground  hopefully landing the right way up with  any luck  you'd think that something this  important would have an operator on  earth  fiddling around with the buttons and  joysticks of a great big remote  controller  but you'd be wrong the ingenuity lives  up to its name by flying on its own  without human interference  that means it has to take off fly and  land autonomously  using a very simplistic yet  sophisticated circuit board with  commands pre-loaded  before it even left earth it will be  able to take photos of its grey journey  on the fly  and transfer colour images back to earth  via the comlink established with the  perseverance rover  the key milestones there are a few key  milestones that we would ideally like  the ingenuity to achieve during its  all-important side mission to mars  that is granted it survives the intense  heat of atmospheric entry undamaged and  deploys without a hitch  one issue that doesn't get enough  attention is just how cold it gets on  mars  we're all used to seeing the red surface  of the martian landscape in the daytime  but it gets seriously chilly once night  falls  as soon as the sun starts to set  temperatures turn frigid and continue  falling to as low as  negative 130 degrees fahrenheit the  ingenuity must keep warm and survive  these freezing nights  for it to have any chance of flight  as the sun dawns on a new day the  minicopter charges up its batteries via  the top mounted panel  and makes contact with the perseverance  from there  it will communicate a status report that  the rover will beam back to earth  letting everyone waiting with baited  breath know that it's so far so good  from there it's a matter of spinning up  the rotors and commencing the pre-flight  hover test  and successful landing then anything  else is just a bonus  once we've established flight as  possible on mars  the successor to the throne you have to  hand it to nasa  the ingenuity hasn't even made a  successful test flight in the thin air  of mars and they're already building a  bigger and better one  the rover aerial vehicle exploration  network project or raven for short  is a next generation concept backed by a  3 million  government grant it's affectionately  known as the drone with claws and lives  up to its avian moniker  the raven is currently in development  and participating in field tests in  iceland of all places  it makes sense as the volcanic terrains  caused by fresh icelandic lava flows are  the closest thing on earth to the tricky  rover no-go areas on mars  this is some of the newest land on earth  having been formed in recent years  before cooling off  there are no animals in the volcanically  active areas of the vatnajerklook  national park  nor are there trees or vegetation of any  kind  not even soil it's a barren rocky  landscape that looks as though it's not  even of this earth  it has an established track record as a  proving field  nasa also used this area to prepare its  astronauts for walking on the moon  before the apollo missions  and will do so again to train personnel  returning to the moon in the upcoming  lunar artemis missions of 2024.  this next generation of mars exploration  drone looks to build on the anticipated  success of the ingenuity this year  making the rover plus drone combination  the gold standard for prospecting other  alien worlds  it packs a heap of new bleeding edge  tech that makes the ingenuity  look like a hobby shop toy you fly  around in your backyard  a prototype grappling device will give  the raven claws  able to pick up rocks or scoop up sand  allowing cached samples to be returned  to its partnering  robotic rover it will sport a technology  found in most current model smartphones  too  lidar which stands for light detection  and ranging  it's an algorithm for measuring  distances remotely using laser light  this light is reflected back at  different intervals  depending on how far away the  interacting object is  with super sensitive sensors about to  collect the photons and sort them on the  fly  the raven will create computer generated  3d terrain models of the landscape  that are far superior to our aerial  high-resolution photographs  it has the engineers back on earth  licking their lips in anticipation of  where to send the future rover missions  next  humans are only limited to seeing in the  small sliver of the electromagnetic  spectrum  occupied by visible light but not the  raven  it will sport a new hyperspectral  imaging camera  able to see light in many other  wavelengths in the infrared and  ultraviolet ranges  it's like a human eye only way better  the other one there is another new kid  on the robotic block  only this guy is going on a way longer  journey  the dragonfly is a quadcopter drone that  will be sent to saturn's largest moon  titan in 2025  it will take nearly a decade to make the  billion mile trip from earth  to its destination this drone will have  the opposite problem to the ingenuity  and raven  in that the atmosphere on titan is  denser than on earth  the dragonfly will make its flight out  from its mothership every 16 days  its blades effortlessly able to maintain  an almost neutral buoyancy  courtesy of the soupy thick air