NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter achieved many milestones during its 72 Red Planet flights.
As a technology demonstrator Ingenuity was tasked with performing up to five flights over the course of 30 Earth days. But from its celebrated maiden voyage on April 19, 2021, to its final air voyage on January 18, 2024, Ingenuity continued to push its self-made limits in altitude achieved, distance flown and speed achieved during those nearly three years.
Ingenuity’s flying days are over: it was a hit Mars dirty hard on its last flight, damage to the rotor blades – but its influence will be felt well into the future. The performance of the 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) helicopter plane has opened the door for follow-on aircraft that can fly through the Red Planet’s friendly but thin atmospheric skies.
Related: Facts about NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter
Last resting place
Ingenuity’s outstanding performance provides a foundation for manufacturing the next generation of aircraft to explore the Red Planet, said Teddy Tzanetos, project manager for Ingenuity at NASA. Jet propulsion laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.
Tzanetos spoke to the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group late last month and described many of the achievements of the small helicopter, whose extraterrestrial exploits far exceeded expectations.
The final resting place for Ingenuity is called “Valinor Hills,” a name taken from “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy that stands for “immortal land,” Tzanetos said.
“It’s fitting because even though we’re at the end of Ingenuity’s mission, Ingenuity is still alive. Aside from our rotor system, the aircraft itself is actually quite green. [for go] across the board. The vehicle is still ready to roll and can move the blades slightly and operate some actuators, Tzanetos said.
No crash
Tzanetos said the mini-helicopter made a hard landing during its last flight but did not crash. “We’re still on our hands and knees,” he added, that is, resting on the full set of landing legs. However, images taken by Ingenuity indicate the loss of about a third of each of the three carbon fiber rotor blades still attached, while the fourth blade appears to have disappeared completely.
This distant, loose rotor blade is believed to be approximately 50 meters west of the craft’s last landing location. “That rotor blade looks like it’s broken off around the root,” Tzanetos said.
Even though the planet is now stationary, Ingenuity continues to collect data on the surface of Mars. And the small helicopter has an onboard storage capacity of about 20 years. “Hopefully one day future astronauts or another rover, another set of aircraft, will be able to downlink that data,” Tzanetos said. (Ingenuity cannot communicate directly with Earth; it was dependent on the Perseverance robber to relay messages, and Perseverance can’t stay at the helicopter’s side forever.)
What went wrong?
During its last three flights, Ingenuity experienced issues with feature tracking – keeping an eye on the terrain it flew over proved challenging due to the dullness of the landscape.
The hard landing on the final flight isn’t terribly surprising, given the resolution of Ingenuity’s camera, the featureless terrain, and how high the aircraft flew above Mars. “This was really the upper limit of what this hardware could achieve,” Tzanetos said.
“This is what she was built for,” he added, “to find that edge and go further so that the next generation can achieve that [of vehicles] can build on that. So it’s an incredible success.”
The Ingenuity team have completed their last shift teamed up with the grounded Mars helicopter on April 16, 2024. The group met to evaluate a transmission from the helicopter, confirming the operation of a software patch on the craft.
With that extra piece of software, Ingenuity can serve as a stationary testbed and collect data that might be useful for future expeditions to Mars.
Hanging looks
Tzanetos highlighted development work on a much larger, more capable aircraft that could fly to Mars on future science missions – a hexacopter. This aircraft is about the size of two Perseverance rovers parked side by side, he said, and could carry payloads anywhere on Mars, whether to the poles, equatorial locations or other desired areas of exploration.
“Airplanes will be great on Mars,” Tzanetos said. “The biggest problem is just landing.” That can be solved, he said, by identifying runways in advance or building landing gear that can handle rocks, pebbles, boulders or unexpected changes in soil properties, without having to dig your nose into the Martian dirt when you get a bump your toe on a rock.
“There will be fixed-wing aircraft on Mars, I’m sure of it. There will also be helicopters on Mars,” Tzanetos added. Such vehicles will be able to fly long distances and linger in selected places – for example, the vast canyon system of Valles Marineris.
Now a hexacopter design called “Chopper” is being explored that will be able to fly just above the surface of Mars and reach a towering height of hundreds of meters.
Also in the works is a proposed sample recovery helicopter, based largely on Ingenuity’s design and envisioned as a proposed means of retrieving the sample tubes now being collected and cached by Perseverance.
However, NASA’s Mars Sample Return project is currently underway programmatically revisedwith technical details on how to conduct the search in limbo.
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Mars exploration with turnkey technology
The Ingenuity team used a lot of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, such as the craft’s radio, small sensors adapted from cell phone technology, solar cells, and devices carried by lightweight drones.
The mission team took certain risks, given the helicopter’s relatively low budget ($80 million) and short development time.
“It comes down to how you manage risk, what is an acceptable level of risk and who decides what is acceptable,” Tzanetos advised. “That doesn’t mean we haven’t tested.”
The helicopter team became the longest-term tenant of JPL’s large space simulator to get Ingenuity ready for Mars, subjecting it to simulated interplanetary conditions of ultra-cold temperatures, high vacuum and brutal solar radiation.
“If the baby had survived even three days, I would have been in the lucky camp. But three years on Mars, immersed in the radiation environment, I think is the final nail in the coffin for all the doubters that COTS can operate on Mars. Tzanetos commented.
“COTS is here to stay,” Tzanetos said. “It’s only going to become more common on Mars and throughout the solar system.”