NASA mission controllers have received the first status report from the Ingenuity Helicopter, which was captured underground to the Perseverance rover that crashed on Mars earlier in the week. According to the organization, both helicopters and their base station are operating “as expected”.
If all goes according to plan, Ingenuity, a 1.8 kilogram rotorcraft, will be the first helicopter to fly on another planet. “There are two things with a big ticket that we find in the data: Ingenuity battery control state as well as confirmation that the base station is working as designed, ordering heaters to turn off and on to the electronics keep a helicopter within expectations. field, ”said Tim Canham, a leading Ingenuity Mars helicopter operation at NASA’s Jet Propulsion laboratory in Southern California.
In this image of his descent to Mars, the spacecraft in which NASA’s Perseverance rover slows down using the attraction generated by its maneuver in Martian atmosphere. (NASA / JPL-Caltech)
“They both seem to be working well. With this positive report, we will move forward with tomorrow’s charge on helicopter batteries. ” The helicopter will stay attached to the rover for 30 to 60 days from the time it goes down.
The perseverance rover, which is the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever deployed to another world, landed safely on the Martian surface in the early hours of Thursday. This photo is the first black and white view of planet mars released by rover Thursday. (Credit: NASA)
Unlike the Perseverance rover, the Ingenuity Mars helicopter does not carry any on-board science equipment. Instead, its main goal is to investigate the feasibility of flying in the shallow atmosphere of Mars. The helicopter was able to send a status update to NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which relays messages between Mars and Earth and has been orbiting the red planet since 2006.
Innovation, the Mars helicopter I carry, works as expected. I am currently cutting it, but once I put it down, it will be completely dependent on its solar panels. If it survives the cold cold Martian nights, the crew will try to fly. https://t.co/8pksN06ZwP #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/80kEoww0QU
– Marsever Perseverance NASA (@NASAPersevere) February 20, 2021
“The downlink, which reached..via connection via Orbiter Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows that both the helicopter… and its base station… are working as expected,” NASA said in a statement.
Currently, the helicopter is receiving a refund from the rover’s power supply. But once it is deployed on the surface of Red Planet, its batteries are charged only by its own solar panel. If a strategy succeeds in moving forward on its first flight, “over 90% of the project’s goals will be achieved. ”
“If the rotorcraft succeeds and works, up to four more flights could be attempted, each building on the success of the latter,” NASA said in a statement.
On Thursday, NASA’s Perseverance rover makes landfall on Mars after seven months in space. The robotic vehicle covered over 472 million km before plunging into Martian atmosphere at 12,000 miles per hour (19,000 km per hour) to begin its entrance to a touchdown on the planet’s surface.
On Friday, NASA released several amazing pictures of the surface of the Red Planet taken by the Perseverance rover. After sinking down near an old river delta in the wee hours of Thursday, the rover will now find traces of ancient life and gather the most necessary rock samples to return to Earth.