Monday’s videos of Volharding’s successful Mars landing in Jezero crater were just the opening act of what NASA’s fastest and best-equipped rover will do for scientific research on the Red Planet.
The second company will be a new type of helicopter, also known as an eVTOL (Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing) aircraft. Weighing in at just four pounds, Ingenuity hitchhiked a nearly 300 million mile ride to Mars, attached to the gut of perseverance. Nicknamed Ginny, ”the VTOL is powered by six lithium-ion batteries that make up only 15 percent of its weight and are rechargeable from the solar panels on top of the airframe.
More from Robb Report
“Classified as a technology demonstration, Ingenuity will perform five flights starting sometime in April,” said Steven Agid, an aerospace engineer at Kennedy Space Center. Robb reportStarting with simple vertical lift operations, each flight takes up to 90 seconds, ranging from 10 to 15 feet above the surface of Mars. Subsequent tests will expand Ingenuity’s flight range, with the longest flight spanning three football fields. “
Ingenuity is just 48cm tall, with four carbon fiber blades arranged in two four-foot long counter-rotating rotors spinning at about 2,400 rpm – or about five times faster than a regular helicopter – due to Mars’ ultra-thin atmosphere. With about two inches of clearance above the ground, Ingenuity will carry two cameras: one color with a horizon-focused view for terrain images and one black and white for navigation.
While Ingenuity can communicate with NASA via Perseverance, the flight tests are not remotely controlled by Cape Canaveral. It takes almost 12 minutes for a signal from Earth to reach Mars and the same for a response. With such a delay, the eVTOL was pre-programmed with test scripts to run when it receives activation signals.
To mitigate all conceivable risks associated with a first flight in an unpredictable and uncontrollable environment, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) conducted an extensive simulation campaign at its CalTech research center in Pasadena, California. From wind tunnel tests to conditions that mimic the extreme temperatures of Mars and much lower gravity, Ingenuity has endured all the known conditions it is likely to encounter on the Red Planet.
While ideal conditions for a new Mars mission are 26 months away, Ingenuity’s validation of the flight characteristics and capabilities on the Red Planet will give NASA and JPL plenty of time to design, build and test the next eVTOL to fly on Mars. Subsequent missions will be for cargo and eventually the electric planes will be used for human transport.
Best of Robb Report
Sign up for the Robb Report newsletter. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest news.