Long time, no speak: NASAs intrepid Mars helicopter has regained communication with mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The mini rotorcraft, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet with the Perseverance rover in early 2021, has already survived well beyond its initial 30-day mission to prove the feasibility of its technology in five test flights. As of Friday, Ingenuity had completed 52 of those flights — and it may have many more in store.
Ingenuity is humankind’s first aircraft that can fly powered, controlled flights on another world. It weighs less than a newborn baby and packs a punch of technology, from cameras to an avionics system capable of processing hundreds of commands. But it is also incredibly fragile, especially in Mars’s much lower gravity, with an atmosphere that is only one-tenth as dense as Earth’s. Ingenuity is designed to handle these challenges, but even a tiny mistake could spell disaster.
So, the helicopter team was relieved to receive successful flight telemetry in a Perseverance downlink this morning (on Sol 755). It’s just the start of a week of health checks and other tests to see if Ingenuity is up for its next mission, which will push some of its limits.
The upcoming flight will be the chopper’s longest yet, traveling more than 1,300 feet as it goes from its current position near Perseverance to Field C, which will serve as its new home base. To do so, the rotorcraft will fly over a hill, blocking signal reception between the two vehicles. This is a risky move, as the hill is in the line of fire for the helicopter’s solar array and can block the Sun’s rays from charging the chopper’s batteries through the night, which power vital systems like its clock and heaters.
Engineers will also test the helicopter’s ability to keep up with a flight plan after a lengthy break. Ingenuity is programmed to fly a short distance each day to capture images of the Martian landscape, and it will need to navigate rugged terrain to do so.
Ingenuity will also use its camera to observe Perseverance as it moves forward to ensure the chopper doesn’t inadvertently snag itself on the rover or cause a collision. It will take a few days to get Ingenuity into the correct position for that maneuver, which will require deploying a pair of landing legs for the first time.
Getting the rotorcraft to that point will involve activating a bolt-breaker on Sol 1, then firing pyrotechnics on Sol 2 to swing Ingenuity from its horizontal under-rover position into a vertical position for the legs to snap into place. It’s a delicate balance of balancing the risks to the helicopter against exploration and science goals and trying out new things like pushing Ingenuity’s flight envelope.
