NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter was apparently finished in by a very boring patch of Mars floor.
Ingenuity suffered injury to a minimum of certainly one of its 4 rotor blades throughout a Jan. 18 flight, grounding the pioneering chopper ceaselessly, NASA officers introduced at this time (Jan. 25).
Whereas group members are nonetheless analyzing what occurred on that fateful sortie, they’ve pieced collectively a possible state of affairs — and it facilities on the sandy, almost rock-free Mars expanse that Ingenuity was exploring.
Associated: NASA loses contact with Ingenuity Mars helicopter
Ingenuity used giant rocks and different options to get its bearings throughout its 72 flights on Mars. Throughout the latest 4 sorties, nevertheless, it discovered itself in a sandy patch that provided little in the best way of navigational cues, mission group members mentioned throughout a press briefing this afternoon.
“It is a few of the hardest terrain we have ever needed to navigate over,” mentioned Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity challenge supervisor at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. “It is very featureless.”
Ingenuity had bother within the space earlier than: It made an emergency touchdown on Jan. 6, chopping Flight 71 brief, apparently as a result of it could not correctly floor itself in its environment.
The identical factor probably occurred on Flight 72, Tzanetos mentioned. However this time, Ingenuity apparently got here in at an angle and struck the crimson filth with a minimum of certainly one of its rotors. (The group has been in a position to determine only one broken rotor blade in photographs to this point, however others probably hit the bottom as effectively, on condition that Ingenuity spins them at greater than 2,500 revolutions per minute, or RPM, throughout flight.)
“It is form of been invincible till this second, once we flew into this fully bland terrain the place you simply don’t have anything to essentially maintain on to,” mentioned Håvard Grip, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter pilot emeritus, additionally of JPL.
It might be robust to nail down precisely what occurred, as a result of Ingenuity suffered a communications blackout across the time of the touchdown, so the group does not have entry to all the related information. However this state of affairs matches the knowledge that they do have.
The laborious touchdown did not kill Ingenuity, which landed with NASA’s Perseverance rover on the ground of Jezero Crater in February 2021. The group rapidly restored communications with the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper and has decided that it is in good well being, other than the rotor injury.
That injury will preserve Ingenuity from flying once more, nevertheless. The helicopter does not have the identical thrust it as soon as did, and its once-impeccable steadiness is now off.
“If something compromises the fragile steadiness of a rotor system like that, whenever you begin attempting to spin it at 2,500 RPM, you are not going to have the ability to maintain that for any affordable time frame,” Tzanetos mentioned.
Ingenuity is a know-how demonstrator that was designed to make simply 5 flights on the Martian floor, so it does not carry any science devices. However the group will proceed gathering engineering information from the chopper, so long as it stays inside hailing distance of Perseverance, which relays communications between Ingenuity and mission management, Tzanetos mentioned.
Someday within the comparatively close to future, nevertheless, the life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance will roll out of vary because it conducts its personal science work. Ingenuity — the primary plane ever to fly on an alien world, a marvel of engineering that far outlasted its five-flight, 30-day guarantee — will then be alone and go silent, a misplaced emissary from one other world.
However possibly not ceaselessly. Ingenuity has helped paved the best way for much more formidable Mars exploration sooner or later, mentioned JPL Director Laurie Leshin, so it isn’t loopy to suppose that Ingenuity might hop between worlds as soon as once more.
“I stay up for the day that certainly one of our astronauts brings residence Ingenuity, and we are able to all go to it within the Smithsonian,” Leshin mentioned at this time.
