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It’s fitting that the mission, an experimental companion to the Perseverance rover, carries a piece of history. A postage stamp-sized piece of muslin cloth that covered one of the wings of the Wright Brothers Flyer 1 is attached to a cable under the helicopter’s solar panel.
A different piece of wing material, known as “Pride of the West” – with a wood chip from the Flyer – was stolen from Apollo 11 in 1969, traveling to the moon and back.
The first powered, controlled flight on Earth took place aboard the Flyer near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, when Orville and Wilbur Wright flew 120 feet for 12 seconds in December 1903. History was made when the brothers Wright made four separate flights on December 17. 1903, and each was a little longer than the last.
The Ingenuity team hopes to do the same.
“When NASA’s Sojourner rover landed on Mars in 1997, it proved it was possible to roam the Red Planet and completely redefined our approach to how we explore Mars. Likewise, we want to know more about the potential of Ingenuity for the future of scientific research ”. Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Sciences Division, said in a statement.
However, before this historic flight to Mars, Ingenuity must complete a series of steps that will occur over the next few weeks – and they will test the 4-pound rotorcraft’s ability to survive the harsh conditions of Mars without the help of Perseverance. .
The rover is currently heading to the nearby 33-by-33-foot (10-by-10-meter) airfield that the Ingenuity team chose to test the helicopter for flight. The site was named after Jakob van Zyl, former director of solar system exploration and associate director of formulation and project strategy at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He passed away in August 2020.
After dropping Ingenuity onto the surface, which is nice and flat, Perseverance will carefully step back and take pictures of the helicopter. Although it sounds simple, this process will take a little over six days. The commands sent by the teams on Earth will help release the locking mechanism that holds the helicopter against the belly of the rover.
Once on the Martian surface, the helicopter will perform torsion and rotation tests of the rotor blades. It will need to recharge using its solar panel and withstand the freezing Martian nights, which can dip to less than 130 degrees Fahrenheit.
Ingenuity will have 31 days to complete its series of test flights, which could include up to five depending on the success of the first. The first flight involves the helicopter lifting about 10 feet off the ground and hovering for about 30 seconds before landing. Subsequent flights will last longer.
“Ingenuity is an experimental engineering flight test – we want to see if we can fly to Mars,” said MiMi Aung, project manager for the Ingenuity Mars helicopter at JPL. “We are convinced that all the engineering data that we want to obtain both on the surface of Mars and at altitude can be realized in this 30 ground window.”
The Soils are Martian days, which last slightly longer than Earth days.
That’s why Ingenuity was designed to be small and light – and built with internal heaters to survive freezing nights.
“Every step we have taken since starting this journey six years ago has been uncharted territory in aviation history,” Balaram said of Ingenuity. “And while deploying to the surface will be a big challenge, surviving that first night on Mars alone, without the rover protecting it and keeping it energized, it will be even greater.”
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