Touchdown for Ingenuity

Ingenuity has officially been deployed from the Perseverance rover and is currently sitting on the martian soil waiting for its first flight. The process to disengage Ingenuity from Perseverance and land took around two weeks. First, the debris shield was dropped. Then, Ingenuity was flipped out with two of its legs deployed. Then, its two other legs flipped out, and finally, the rotorcraft survived its 4-inch drop from the rover’s belly to the martian soil.

Ingenuity on the Surface of Mars

Ingenuity is a 4-pound helicopter that will be the first rotorcraft ever to fly in the skies of Mars. Ingenuity is expected to make its flight shortly. On Ingenuity, there is one camera and two microphones. However, it won’t be able to fly very far and for long. The propellers on Ingenuity also spin very fast because the air on Mars is 1% as thick as it is on Earth.

Ingenuity also uses solar power to keep itself light and allows it to be operational for a few years. However, before being deployed, Ingenuity was being powered by a Perseverance nuclear-powered system. This is important because nights on Mars are very harsh, and threaten to damage both Ingenuity and Perseverance. Both can use any power generated to keep themselves warm. 

Design on Ingenuity

Ingenuity’s first flight is scheduled to be on April 11th. Any data that is collected from the flight will be sent to NASA on April 12th. This data will include pictures, wind speeds, and altitude of Ingenuity during flight. Before this flight, NASA will conduct multiple tests to make sure that Ingenuity reaches the required rotations (2537 rpm) to make sure that it can successfully fly. During the first flight, Perseverance will be stationed 16.5 feet away.

As mentioned before, Ingenuity is a science experiment to see how we can explore Mars in the future. Because of this, its mission cycle isn’t very long. Its mission cycle is 31 sols (31 martian days). During this time, it will conduct 5 flights. These flights will all be all over Jezero Crater and the maximum altitude that Ingenuity will reach is 16.5 feet. If all goes successful, the design of rovers may change drastically in the future. Maybe, in the future, any rovers that we will send to Mars will be drones.

Flight Plan for Ingenuity

Sources:

“Ingenuity (Helicopter).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Apr. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter). 

Malik, Tariq. “NASA's Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Touches down on the Red Planet.” Space.com, Space, 4 Apr. 2021, www.space.com/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-touches-down-martian-surface. 

Pradhan, Arnav. Perseverance Finally Sees Its Buddy: Ingenuity, Blogger, 23 Mar. 2021, www.arnavpradhan.com/2021/03/perseverance-finally-sees-its-buddy.html.