In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew a plane for 12 seconds, 120 feet in the air, on what is now the first power-controlled flight on Earth. Now, 118 years later, the first power-controlled flight attempt on another planet is about to take place.
According to NASA, Ingenuity – the four-pound rotorcraft linked to Sustainability – is on its way to its “airspace” on Mars.
The space agency announced that the target for their first takeoff attempt will not occur earlier than April 8, 2021.
Innovation was designed as an experiment to see if it is possible to fly on Mars as we do here on Earth. And the process leading up to takeoff is very detailed. Consider how long it took humans to maintain a power-controlled flight on Earth; since Mars has a thin feel and a twenty-minute delay in communication, it can be said to be more challenging on Mars.
“Like everything with the helicopter, this type of deployment has never been done before,” Farah Alibay, Mars helicopter integration director for the rover Perseverance, said in a press release. “As soon as we start the practice there is no turning back.”
Every move for the next few weeks could make or break Ingenuity’s success – starting with precisely positioning the rotorcraft in the middle of its 33-by-33-foot square airfield , which is actually a flat area on the Martian surface with no obstacles. From there, the whole practice process from Perseverance takes about six Martian days, called sols. (The Martian sol is thirty-nine minutes longer than a day on Earth.)
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The plan, on the sol of one of his unfurling six-sols, is for scientists on Earth to activate a bolt-breaking device that removes the lock that has held the device in place. Sustainability so strong during the journey from Earth to Mars. During the second sol, scientists fire a “cable cutting pyrotechnic machine” to start pushing the helicopter out of its horizontal position; cutting a cable to one side, on the second sol, Ingenuity literally begins to stretch two of its four legs. On the third sol, a small electric motor surrounds Ingenuity and brings it to a completely upright position. On the fourth sol, Ingenuity keeps opening. On the fifth sol, scientists charge Ingenuity batteries through Perseverance as a source of solar power. At this point, it hangs at about 5 inches (13 centimeters) over the Martian surface, connected to Stability only with one bolt and a few tiny electrical connections.
“As soon as we cut the cord with Perseverance and drop those last five inches to the surface, we want our best friend to drive away as soon as possible. so we can get the sun’s rays on our solar panel and start recharging our batteries, ”Bob Balaram, Mars’s chief helicopter engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement.
From there, it’s time to see if Ingenuity can fly. Perseverance will move to 16 feet away from Ingenuity, which will contain 30 Martian sol to execute their test flight mission.
Flying on Mars is very difficult not only because of the difference in gravity from the Earth, but also because the feel on Mars is just 1 percent as dense as the Earth’s atmosphere at the surface. Terrible temperature changes are happening on Mars; during the day, the Red Planet receives half the amount of solar energy reaching Earth. At night, the temperature drops to less than 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Innovation is small because it needs to be very light to fly through the atmosphere, but it also needs to have enough energy to hold power through frigid Martian nights. There is a chance that Ingenuity will not even survive the first night alone.
“Every step we have taken since this voyage began six years ago has been unlisted land in the history of aviation,” said Balaram. , it will live even longer to survive that first night on Mars alone, without the rover protecting it and keeping it under power. “
But assuming it does, Sustainability will redirect to Ingenuity its flight management, through millions of rulers here on Earth. The plan for Ingenuity is to run its rotors to 2,537 revolutions per minute, and then build it off. If all goes well, it will go up about three feet per second and move at 10 feet for 30 seconds before going down and rubbing on the ground on Mars. After a flight or two, the real mission begins.
“Mars is hard,” Aung said. “Our plan is to work no matter what the Red Planet throws at us in the same way we have handled all the challenges we have faced over the past six years – together , with perseverance and a lot of hard work, and a little innovation. “
In particular, Ingenuity design introduces a node on the first controlled flight here on Earth.
According to NASA, a small piece of clothing was used to cover one of the wings of the Wright brothers’ plane under one of the Ingenuity solar panels with the help of insulation tape. The Apollo crew flew 11 different pieces of material during their 1969 historic trip to the moon.
“Ingenuity is an experimental engineering flight test – we want to see if we can fly at Mars,” Aung said. “There are no scientific instruments on board and no goals for obtaining scientific information. We are confident that all the engineering data we want to obtain both on the surface of Mars and aloft can be made within the 30-sol window seo. “