2023-11-26 06:00:00
Ingenuity is an exploration helicopter that made its first flight on Mars more than two years ago. Tristan Bergen 26/11/2023 07:00 7 min
NASA has made particularly significant progress in space exploration in recent years. For the planet Mars for example, it uses several rovers but also a remotely controlled helicopter (Ingenuity) having made its first flight on the red planet on April 21, 2021.
Tests on two different planets: a first!
The Ingenuity helicopter continues its mission on the Red Planet by carrying out regular flights, allowing scientists to perfect their mastery of this flying machine piloted from Earth. However, cand machine was planned to make only 5 flights initiallymainly for tester technology directly to Mars.
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But Ingenuity has proven to be much more resilient than initially envisaged by the scientists in charge of the Mars mission. In fact, the limit of 5 flights is today only a distant memory since this year it exceeded 50 flightsbreaking numerous speed and height records at the same time.
One flight, two perspectives
While the #MarsHelicopter captured its own high-altitude 59th flight, @NASAPersevere watched it all unfold from nearby. These side-by-side viewpoints show Ingenuity reach 66 ft (20 m) on Sept. 16, 2023, as part of an experimental flight test. pic.twitter.com/91mLZz6du1
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) November 22, 2023
Nevertheless, the future generation of exploration helicopters is already in preparation on the Earth side. At NASA’s Jet Propulsio Laboratory in California, engineers are currently testing a new rotor system for future Martian helicopterswhich means that this type of technology is therefore tested for the first time on two different planets, a first!
This new type of rotor features revolutionary blades carbon fiberwhich prevents them from vibrating too much due to air turbulence and which therefore limits the chances of them breaking. These new blades are longer and therefore more resistant than those of Ingenuity, which allows them to survive near supersonic speeds and reach up to 3,500 revolutions per minutewhich is again much faster than those of the helicopter already on a mission to Mars.
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In order for the tests to take place in the most optimal conditions and most faithful to the Martian atmosphere, NASA scientists use a special facility called “ 25-foot Space Simulator “. This immense space allowsimitate conditions in the atmosphere of the red planet and therefore of effectively test this new generation of helicopters which will also be sent to Mars in the coming years.
Ingenuity continue sa mission
While waiting for these new helicopters to fly above the surface of Mars, Ingenuity is effectively continuing its exploration mission by flying at higher altitudes and speeds than ever before. Today, In particular, these repeated flights provide valuable data on how helicopters can operate on Mars.
Have you already viewed the routes of Perseverance and Ingenuity?
This is done with the J23 card of #30DayMapChallenge (3D) !
Made with QGIS (QGIS2threejs plugin) and Illustrator
(Also works for J22)#space #mars #map pic.twitter.com/NwR4wFsjzY
— AB Pictoris (@AbPictoris) November 23, 2023
For example, faster flight allows you to cover more ground, but speed can also disrupt Ingenuity’s navigation system, which uses a camera to track features of the surface it flies over. To overcome this problem, the scientists in charge of the observation robot flew it at higher altitudesa solution which will be used for the next generation of helicopters being prepared on Earth.
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Ingenuity’s repeated flights provide important information for the development of new helicopters from Earth. These may in fact in the future cover a much larger area, achieve much higher speeds and especially areas that rovers cannot reach todayallowing us to perfect our knowledge of the red planet.
Speaking of which, NASA is planning even more ambitious flights for Ingenuity in the coming months, testing it in different ways and pushing it to its limits to gather as much information as possible. However, the risks undertaken are very considered because a crash or technical problem caused by these future flights would result in the end of the missionIngenuity cannot be repaired on site.
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In summary, the tests carried out on Mars and on Earth for these different exploration helicopters are a considerable advance in space exploration. These open up new possibilities for studying the red planet (or even other planets in the future) that we would never have thought possible and will probably bring us important discoveries in the more or less near future.
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#NASA #tests #exploration #helicopters #planets