When a small 4-pound helicopter soared above a red landscape Monday morning, it became the first craft to make a controlled, powered flight on a planet beyond Earth.
At approximately 6:15 a.m. EDT Monday, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter team – along with eager viewers from around the world – watched live as data from the red planet arrived at Mission Control via a Deep Space Network antenna. The data indicated that Ingenuity’s flight, which took place about four hours earlier, had been a success.
“Sometimes we have to do something to show that we can do it,” NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen said during NASA’s live stream of the event. “When the Wright brothers first flew, they flew an experimental plane. And in the same way, the Mars helicopter is designed to show that we can fly a motorized helicopter flight in the atmosphere of Mars. “
Getting Ingenuity to fly, added Ingenuity project manager MiMi Aung, “has been our team’s unwavering dream since day one.”
On Monday, Downlink leader Michael Starch, dressed in an orange Ingenuity team polo, examined his computer screen in the helicopter’s control room. This is a downlink. Early indications, ”he said, looking up from the monitor. “Data products look nominal.”
Aung sat nearby, grinning visibly under her mask.
“This is a downlink,” Starch repeated. “We’ve brought in data products from Mars 2020.” It pauses for 39 seconds. The room was quiet. “This is a downlink,” he said again. “Confirming that we have received Mars 2020 telemetry. Confirming that we have received the Mars 2020 event. Confirming that we have received data products for helicopters. Starch nodded his head up and down.
Silence fell over the control room again. Aung twirled her fingers. Some teammates nodded. Others looked at their laptops, then back to their impatient colleagues.
“This is a downlink,” said Starch. “Confirming that we have helicopter data products, helicopter telemetry, helicopter events … battery data has been received.”
Members of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter team, including MiMi Aung (front), at NASA JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility are preparing to receive the data downlink showing if the helicopter has completed its maiden flight on April 19, 2021 Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Starch handed it to Flight Control, who announced, “Ingenuity reports that they have performed spin-up, take-off, climb, float, descend, land, touchdown and spin-down.”
Aung gave two thumbs up, then waved her fists. The control room erupted from the clapping, coming from both the team members who wore the mask personally and those who watched over Zoom.
“Altimeter data confirmed,” Flight Control said. Cheers came from the control room. The flight’s altimeter plot, mechanical engineer Taryn Bailey explained during NASA’s live stream, indicates a spike. It starts with a flat line, showing that Ingenuity is grounded, has a steep slope, indicating that the helicopter has taken off and taken off, a stop showing Ingenuity is floating, and then another steep drop to the ground that the helicopter has taken off. Landing of Ingenuity.
“Confirmed that Ingenuity made its first powered aircraft flight on another planet,” said Flight Control.
As the cheers and fist pumps continued, the team received the first photo of the mission: a black-and-white photo Ingenuity captured floating above the surface of Mars, with its shadow – four rotors, four legs and a tissue box-like body. – poured underneath.
Getting Ingenuity to fly on Mars wasn’t easy. This maiden flight, originally scheduled for Sunday, April 11, was delayed after team engineers identified a potential problem. (The team decided to update Ingenuity’s flight control software before attempting a first flight.) And years of preparation on Earth were needed.
As of 2014, before Ingenuity was tested, the team used helicopter models to simulate a flight on Mars. These models were the predecessors of Ingenuity and “underwent extensive environmental and aerodynamic testing,” said Bailey.
To properly test these models and then start Ingenuity in 2019, “We had to simulate a Mars-like atmosphere,” which is 1% of the Earth’s density, Bailey explained. The team did this by using NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s 25-foot space simulator thermal vacuum chamber, which allowed the team to control temperature and pressure to simulate the atmospheric density of Mars. The team also used a gravity unloading system to compensate for the difference in gravity between Earth and Mars, Bailey said.
After these tests, “We said, ‘The next time we fly, it’s on Mars,'” Aung said at a press conference on April 9.
The first flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter was captured in this image from Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on April 19, 2021. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Weighing in at four pounds, Ingenuity was built to be both light and fast, enhancing its ability to float in Mars’ incredibly thin atmosphere. Despite its small size, the helicopter’s wingspan is four feet from point to point: “super big for something that essentially carries [a vehicle] the size of a tissue box, ”Bailey said.
Each of the four trays is made from a lightweight yet strong composite material and weighs less than 60 grams – the equivalent of four empty soda cans. To generate lift in an incredibly thin atmosphere with few molecules to push around, Ingenuity’s blades move at an average speed of 2500 revolutions per minute. (Helicopters used on Earth typically operate at 450 to 500 rpm.)
While Ingenuity’s first flight was modest – hovering 10 feet above the red planet’s surface and landing – the next four flights will increase in technical difficulty. The team eventually hopes to explore parts of Mars’ terrain that it cannot navigate with terrestrial rovers such as Perseverance. “The rover has to navigate many obstacles on the ground that the helicopter can fly around,” said Bailey.
“We’ve sent five rovers to Mars and now we have an aerial dimension that … takes the next phase of space exploration to the next level,” she added. Ingenuity and its eventual successors could also enable greater collaboration and ultimately open the door to human exploration of other worlds, Bailey said.
While the Ingenuity team has already received still images from the helicopter’s maiden flight from both Ingenuity and Perseverance, it expects to receive video and more high-resolution images in the coming days. You can view it here on NASA’s website.