The drone that traveled inside NASA’s Perseverance rover , landed last February on the Martian surface, makes its flight attempt on the red planet on the morning of Monday, April 19.
The space agency had originally planned the flight for April 11, but postponed it due to a software problem that was identified during a planned high-speed test of the aircraft’s rotors.
Since then, the problem has been solved and the 1.8 kilogram drone could achieve its feat around 3:30 a.m. Eastern time (0730 GMT). However, the data will not arrive until several hours later, and NASA will begin a live broadcast at 6:15 am (1015 GMT).
The first powered flight on Earth was made by the Wright brothers in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.A piece of cloth from that plane has been tucked inside Ingenuity in honor of that feat.
The helicopter traveled to Mars attached to the underside of the Perseverance rover, which landed on the planet on February 18 on a mission to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.
Ingenuity’s goal, by contrast, is to demonstrate that its technology works and will not contribute to Perseverance’s scientific goals.
But it is hoped that Ingenuity can pave the way for future flyers that will revolutionize our exploration of celestial bodies because they can reach areas that rovers cannot go and travel much faster.
The helicopter flight schedule is chosen with the climate on Mars in mind. The wind is the great unknown and could jeopardize the mission.
Flight is a challenge becausethe air on Mars is very light, less than one percent of the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere.That makes it much more difficult to achieve elevation, even though it will be partially aided by a gravitational pull that is one-third that of Earth.
NASA hopes to make the helicopter rise five meters and then move laterally
The helicopter will rise for about six seconds, hover and rotate for about 30 seconds, then come back down.
The flight will be autonomous, pre-programmed on the aircraft due to the 15 minutes it takes for signals to travel from Earth to Mars. After the flight, Ingenuity will send Perseverance technical data about what it has done, and that information will be relayed to Earth.
This will include a black and white photo of the Martian surface that Ingenuity is programmed to take while flying.
Later, once the batteries have been recharged again, Ingenuity will transmit another photo, in color, of the Martian horizon, taken with a different camera.
But the most spectacular footage is supposed to come from the Perseverance rover, which will film the flight just a few feet away.
Shortly after this filming, six videos of 2.5 seconds each will be sent to Earth. NASA hopes that at least one of them will show the helicopter in flight.
Five flights in a month
Four outcomes are possible, Aung said: complete success, partial success, insufficient or no data, or failure.
If the flight is a success, NASA will test another no more than four days later. Plan up to five total, each one successively more difficult, over the course of a month.
Source: phys.org and NASA
