Draft 3

 Helicopter Ingenuity

From the article by Gohd (2021), ‘Mars helicopter Ingenuity: First aircraft to fly on Red planet’, helicopter Ingenuity took off successfully on April 19, 2021. Tucked in NASA’s Perseverance Rover’s belly, it was NASA’s first aircraft to be launched to the Red Planet on February 18, 2021, as part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. Some of helicopter Ingenuity's features are solar panels, batteries, rotor blades, and cameras. According to Gohd (2021), the helicopter's solar panel charges Lithium-ion batteries that provide enough energy for one 90-second flight per Martian day. Gohd (2021) also mentioned Ingenuity to have two cameras on board, one with 0.3-megapixel black-and-white camera that points down to the ground, used for navigation. The other camera is a 12-megapixel high-resolution that looks out to the horizon. As mentioned in the article, the helicopter has rotor blades of just under 1.2 meters across, powered by a small solar panel mounted above its rotor blades.

Although helicopter Ingenuity currently is not a transportation device, it proved that flight on another planet is possible using its rotor blades and navigated around Mars using its 3D imaging system.

Helicopter Ingenuity was able to succeed in its mission to prove that powered flight is possible on Mars with the use of powerful rotor blades. According to Iles (2021), it was mentioned that the rotor must spin at a speed that creates a lift force. To achieve this, the carbon fibre rotors spin at a high speed of 2,400 revolutions per minute. Ingenuity’s blades are 1.2m from tip to tip while its body is merely the size of a tissue box as mentioned by Iles (2021). According to Potter (2021), Mars’ atmosphere is very thin compared to Earth where Mars has an atmospheric volume of less than 1% that of Earth’s. There are other challenges in flying a helicopter on Mars which included wind and dust storms and making sure that the craft has enough power from its solar array as mentioned by Gohd (2021). Therefore, despite the harsh weather conditions on Mars, the fact that Ingenuity was successfully able to fly 3 metres above the surface lasting for 40 seconds according to Gohd (2021) on its first try is remarkable.

 

Moreover, using its 3D imaging system, helicopter Ingenuity can autonomously navigate around Mars. With the use of the cameras and sensors on its body, Ingenuity can detect the surface below it and map a 3D reconstruction of it that allows it to determine the suitable landing spots as mentioned by Brockers (2021). According to Brockers (2021), it was mentioned that due to the distance between Earth and Mars, manual control of the helicopter is not possible for take-off and landing. Therefore, the team had to include this 3D imaging system that allowed Ingenuity to perform its flights and landing autonomously. With this novel system, Ingenuity would be able to revolutionize space exploration and access regions where it is difficult to travel with the use of rovers.

Nonetheless, helicopter Ingenuity is not a fully-fledged transportation device. This is because it has very little additional technology as mentioned by Gohd (2021). Another reason according to Potter (2020) is that Ingenuity was only intended as a technology demonstration. However, according to NASA (n.d), it was mentioned that NASA hopes to increase Ingenuity’s usage to use it as a transportation device where it could assist any astronauts working on that planet.

Regardless of being a relatively small and minute demonstration, Ingenuity was able to break the boundary of surface travel on Mars. Thus, helicopter Ingenuity would be the first step into easier space and planet explorations and be a device that scientists hope would be a good assist to astronauts.

 

Amos, J. (2021, April 19). NASA successfully flies small helicopter on Mars. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56799755.

Brockers, R. (2021, June), Autonomous Safe Landing Site Detection for a Future Mars Science Helicopter. IEEE Xplore. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org.singaporetech.remotexs.co/abstract/document/9438289.

Gohd, C. (2021, May 22). Mars helicopter ingenuity: First aircraft to fly on Red Planet. Space.com. https://www.space.com/ingenuity-mars-helicopter-perseverance-rover.

Iles, G. (2021, June 4). So a helicopter flew on Mars for the first time. A space physicist explains why that's such a big deal. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/so-a-helicopter-flew-on-mars-for-the-first-time-a-space-physicist-explains-why-thats-such-a-big-deal-159334.

 

NASA. (n.d.). Mars helicopter. NASA. https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/#Overview.

Potter, N. (2021, July), A Mars helicopter preps for launch: The first drone to fly on another planet will hitch a ride on NASA's Perseverance rover – [NEWS]. IEEE Spectrum, 57(7), 06-07 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9126096.