How is NASA’s Ingenuity Mars chopper still functional after 50 flights

Getting more details is great, especially for space projects funded by the public. It’s cool when a NASA engineer takes a break from their busy schedule to give us an update on the beloved Mars helicopter, Ingenuity. The little chopper has been going through a tough time lately, and Travis Brown, the Chief Engineer on the Ingenuity project, spills the beans on why in his latest article on NASA’s website titled “The Long Wait.”

Trouble kicked in during Ingenuity’s 52nd flight on April 26th. When the copter landed, it purposely went out of range from its rover buddy, Perseverance, and its radio link to Earth controllers. Although planned, this move left Ingenuity’s caretakers in the dark about the success of the flight.

Dr. Brown breaks down why the team decided to intentionally land the helicopter beyond Perseverance’s reach. Plus, he spills the beans on the four key priorities for the copter’s secondary mission. But before we get into that, let’s understand what NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is and how it functions.

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What is Ingenuity?

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is this little flying machine hitching a ride on the belly of the Perseverance rover, dropped off on the Red Planet. Its mission is all about experimenting and doing its own thing, totally separate from what the rover is up to scientifically.

Ingenuity touched down on the Martian surface on April 4, 2021. Then, on April 19, it pulled off a groundbreaking feat by becoming the first-ever aircraft to take a powered, controlled flight on another planet. Navigating the skies on Mars is no cakewalk because the Red Planet boasts way less gravity – just one-third of what Earth has – and an incredibly thin atmosphere with only 1% of the pressure we have on our home turf. That means Ingenuity’s two 4-foot-wide rotor blades have a limited number of air molecules to work with for achieving flight.

The helicopter’s flights are hands-free, with the onboard guidance, navigation, and control systems using algorithms crafted by the JPL team to steer the show. Since data has to make a crazy long trip to and from the Red Planet via orbiting satellites and NASA’s Deep Space Network, Ingenuity can’t be zipped around with a joystick, and folks on Earth can’t catch its flights in real time.

For its Mars mission, the helicopter needs a helping hand from the Perseverance rover to handle communications to and from Earth.

What will be Ingenuity’s missions going forward

No big surprise here – the top priority is making sure Perseverance stays in tip-top shape. The rover is busy snagging cool samples for the kinda iffy Mars Sample Return mission. Assuming it still happens, this mission aims to bring those samples back to Earth someday.

If Ingenuity accidentally messes with that whole process, you can bet the NASA bigwigs won’t be happy. So, the folks in charge of the helicopter figured the smart move is to stay way ahead of the rover and let it play catch-up, which was the plan for Flight #52. The bummer is that part of Perseverance’s gig is being flexible, and the team running the show can decide on the fly where they want the rover to roll next.

So, after Ingenuity did its thing in the air, the rover team ditched the original route that would’ve brought it close to the helicopter in a few days. Instead, they opted for a detour to dive into some cool science stuff elsewhere. By the time Perseverance finally swung back into range, a whopping 61 days had passed with the helicopter just chilling and waiting for it.

Ingenuity ran into another problem

Once Ingenuity could finally shoot over its images, the science squad got all hyped up because it had touched down on a bunch of pebbles that were totally new to the Martian scene. Right away, they lined up another flight, aiming to scope out the nearby terrain for any other rad geological features for Perseverance to check out.

And here’s where problem number two popped its head up. In the middle of Ingenuity’s 53rd flight, a brand-new error hit the scene, making the helicopter touch down out of the blue. Dr. Brown calls it a time desynchronization glitch between a ground-features-tracking camera and other sensors linked to its inertial guidance system.

Ask any engineer who’s dealt with a bunch of systems, and they’ll tell you how much of a headache timing synchronization can be. So, the guidance system made the smart call to shut things down for the safety of the machine. But, it also meant Ingenuity was back on the ground, missing out on a mission objective that could’ve been pretty darn interesting.

While Ingenuity was bouncing back from its surprise landing, Perseverance rolled up and stole its thunder. There wasn’t much point in the helicopter dishing out scientific data anymore, given that the rover had top-notch instruments ready to roll.

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Ingenuity exceeding NASA’s expectations

Fortunately, that gave the helicopter the green light for a quick spin in Flight #54. It took the opportunity to run some system tests and then hopped right back into scouting action with Flight #55 shortly after, and this time around, no synchronization headaches were tagging along.

Just to jog your memory, Ingenuity’s original mission blueprint was supposed to go on for 30 days and cover three flights. Fast forward to today, it’s been a whopping 979 days, and the little copter has aced a grand total of 66 flights.

It’s pretty mind-blowing for a tiny contraption on a far-off planet. Big kudos to Dr. Brown and the crew! Here’s to them tackling more challenges and pulling off plenty more flights in the future.