Tag: Ingenuity

Four more flights for Ingenuity in the next eleven days.

9:14 am

According to MiMi Aung, Ingenuity’s project manager, the test flight campaign for the Mars helicopter Ingenuity has only about eleven days left, during which they will try to complete full flight program of four more test flights.

The helicopter’s one-month test flight campaign officially began April 3, then the Perseverance rover deployed Ingenuity onto the surface of Mars. “We have a 30 day experiment window, so we have two weeks left,” said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

She said the helicopter will attempt “increasingly bolder flights” that could travel more than 2,000 feet (600 meters) from its takeoff location. “We do want to push it, and I believe we have enough time to squeeze the next four flights in the next two weeks left.”

The second flight, where the helicopter will go up about 16 feet and then move sideways about seven feet before landing at its take-off point, could happen tomorrow. The third flight, which will travel as much as 150 feet, will follow soon thereafter.

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Video of Ingenuity’s flight, taken by Perseverance

8:39 am

JPL yesterday released a short one minute long video created from images taken by the high resolution mast camera on Perseverance.

You can view the animation here.

Stitched together from multiple images, the mosaic is not white balanced; instead, it is displayed in a preliminary calibrated version of a natural-color composite, approximately simulating the colors of the scene as it would appear on Mars.

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Ingenuity flies!

8:53 am

Ingenuity takes off!
For full images go here and here.

The first autonomous flight of the helicopter Ingenuity on Mars successfully took place early this morning, according to JPL engineers.

NASA has pulled off the first powered flight on another world. Ingenuity, the robot rotorcraft that is part of the agency’s Perseverance mission, lifted off from the surface of Mars on 19 April, in a 40-second flight that is a landmark in interplanetary aviation. “We can now say that human beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet,” says MiMi Aung, the project’s lead engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

As shown by the two images taken by Perseverance above, the first flight was very simple. The helicopter simply rose about 10 feet, hovered for about 30 seconds as it swiveled 90 degrees, and then carefully descended back down. I have also embedded the video that JPL scientists have created compiling by high resolution Perseverance images below the fold.

Four more flights will next be attempted in the coming weeks.

Four further flights, each lasting up to 90 seconds, are planned in the coming weeks. In these, Ingenuity is likely to rise up to 5 metres [16 feet] above the surface and travel up to 300 metres [1000 feet] from the take-off point. Each successive flight will push Ingenuity’s capabilities to see how well the drone fares in Mars’s thin atmosphere, which is just 1% as dense as Earth’s.

» Read more

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The rovers’ view of Mars

9:10 am

The view from the top of Mont Mercou
Click for higher resolution. For original images, go here and here.

Some cool images to savor from Mars! Above is a panorama from Curiosity, created by me from two images taken by the rover’s left navigation camera today, April 18, 2021. The view is southwest towards the canyon regions where Curiosity will be heading in the coming months. Note the roughness of the ground. Travel is going to be tricky from here on out.

The photo was taken from the top of Mont Mercou, the 20-foot high outcrop that the rover spent several weeks studying at the cliff’s base. The Curiosity science team is presently preparing to drill into the bedrock at the top.

Ingenuity on the floor of Jezero Crater
Click for full image.

The photo to the right, reduced to post here, was taken by Perseverance on April 13, 2021, and looks west across the floor of Jezero crater. The high mountains in the distance are the crater’s rim. The low and much closer hill is the delta that is the rover’s primary geological target.

In the center of the picture is the helicopter Ingenuity. You can also see the tracks of Perseverance’s wheels just below it.

This will be the rover’s vantage point when Ingenuity attempts its first test flight in the early morning hours of April 19, 2021. The helicopter will head to the right once it lifts off.

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Ingenuity first test flight scheduled for 3:30 am (Eastern) tonight!

8:16 am

The engineering team for the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars have decided to attempt the first test flight tonight, scheduled for 3:30 am (Eastern) in the early morning hours tomorrow.

Data from the first flight will return to Earth a few hours [later] following the autonomous flight. A livestream will begin at 6:15 a.m. EDT (3:15 a.m. PDT) as the helicopter team prepares to receive the data downlink in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

NASA propaganda will begin on NASA TV at 3:30 am (Eastern), but the actual live stream of the flight will not air until about 6:30 am (Eastern) on April 19th.

At the first link above the engineers explain their decision to proceed immediately.
» Read more

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Ingenuity successfully completes rapid spin test

9:00 am

Ingenuity’s engineers announced this morning that yesterday the helicopter on Mars was able to successfully complete a rapid spin test of its rotary blades.

Today, April 16, on the 154th anniversary of Wilbur Wright’s birth, the Ingenuity flight team received information that the helicopter was able to complete a rapid spin test. The completion of the full-speed spin is an important milestone on the path to flight as the team continues to work on the command sequence issue identified on Sol 49 (April 9).

…The approach that led to today’s successful spin test entailed adding a few commands to the flight sequence. This approach was tested extensively on both Earth and Mars, and was performed without jeopardizing the safety of the helicopter.

They have still not set a date for flight, because they might still decide, after they have analyzed fully the results from this test, to revise the helicopter’s software and upload that change. If not the flight will be relatively soon. If so there will be a longer delay to test that software fully before flight.

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Ingenuity requires software update before flying

9:10 pm

JPL engineers have determined that they need to upload a software update on Ingenuity in order to solve the issue that caused the first high-speed spin test of its rotary blades to end prematurely.

In an update released late Monday by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, mission managers said engineers identified a software fix for the “command sequence issue” that ended the high-speed spin-up test Friday.

Officials at JPL, which manages the Ingenuity helicopter project, did not announce a new target date for the rotorcraft’s first test flight. Ground teams hope to determine a new target date next week for the helicopter’s first flight.

According to the original plans, Ingenuity was to get about a 30 day test period, after which Perseverance would move on to its primary Mars science mission. It is not clear at this moment whether that test period will be extended because of these issues. I suspect they will extend it to get as many flight tests as possible, since Perseverance is functioning like a dream and can wait a few extra weeks before beginning what will be years of Martian roving. How often does one get to flight test a helicopter on another world?

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Ingenuity test flight delayed

12:08 pm

Due to a software issue identified during testing of the helicopter’s rotary blades, Ingenuity’s engineers have decided to delay its first flight for at least three days.

During a high-speed spin test of the rotors on Friday, the command sequence controlling the test ended early due to a “watchdog” timer expiration. This occurred as it was trying to transition the flight computer from ‘Pre-Flight’ to ‘Flight’ mode. The helicopter is safe and healthy and communicated its full telemetry set to Earth.

They are presently trouble-shooting the issue.

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Ingenuity’s flight schedule

9:07 pm

Ingenuity’s first flight on Mars is now a go for late on April 11th, with the first data arriving in the early hours of April 12th.

The flight plan should that first flight go as expected is as follows:

The helicopter team has 30 Martian sols (roughly 31 days on Earth) to take the first tentative flights. Assuming Ingenuity survives the first flight, it will rest and transmit data before attempting a second flight with lateral movement. Subsequent flights will happen every three or four Martian sols. The fifth flight — if Ingenuity gets that far — will be a chance to really soar. “The probability is it would be unlikely it will land safely because we will go into unsurveyed areas,” Aung said.

They have unlocked and tested the rotary blades, with all working as planned.

To watch JPL will have a live stream which I will embed on Behind the Black when it goes live at about 3:30 am Eastern on the morning of April 12th.

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Watching Ingenuity’s flight

8:35 am

NASA has now announced the planned flight time for its Ingenuity helicopter now on the Martian surface, including information for watching the live stream of the attempt.

A livestream confirming Ingenuity’s first flight is targeted to begin around 3:30 a.m. EDT Monday, April 12, on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website, and will livestream on multiple agency social media platforms, including the JPL YouTube and Facebook channels.

I will embed the JPL live stream on Behind the Black when it goes live.

Meanwhile, Perseverance’s weather station is now functioning, providing its first weather reports from Jezero Crater.

[E]ngineers now have atmospheric data from three different locations on the Red Planet – Perseverance, Curiosity, and NASA’s InSight lander, which hosts the Temperature and Wind sensors for InSight (TWINS). The trio will enable a deeper understanding of Martian weather patterns, events, and atmospheric turbulence that could influence planning for future missions. In the near term, MEDA’s information is helping decide the best atmospheric conditions for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flights.

As Ingenuity achieved pre-flight milestones, a MEDA report from the 43rd and 44th Martian days, or sols, of the mission (April 3-4 on Earth) showed a temperature high of minus 7.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 22 degrees Celsius) and low of minus 117.4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 83 degrees Celsius) in Jezero Crater. MEDA also measured wind gusts at around 22 mph (10 meters per second).

Those numbers are about normal for Jezero Crater at 18 degrees north latitude in the spring.

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Ingenuity survives first night on its own on Mars

3:17 pm

Completing another a major engineering hurdle, the Ingenuity helicopter successfully survived its first night on Mars, unprotected by the power and shielding of the Perseverance rover.

“This is the first time that Ingenuity has been on its own on the surface of Mars,” said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “But we now have confirmation that we have the right insulation, the right heaters, and enough energy in its battery to survive the cold night, which is a big win for the team. We’re excited to continue to prepare Ingenuity for its first flight test.”

Engineers will spend the next two days fine-tuning Ingenuity’s thermal and power systems. Then on April 7th they will begin testing the helicopter’s rotary blades and their motors. If all goes right, the actual flight will occur on April 11th.

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Ingenuity released from Perseverance

12:57 am

Ingenuity on the ground
Click for full image.

Perseverance engineers have now confirmed that the Ingenuity helicopter was successfully released below the rover earlier today, and the rover immediately moved away to expose the helicopter to sunlight so that its solar panels can charge its batteries.

The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken by one of Perseverance’s rear hazard avoidance cameras, shortly after the release and move. They will now begin about a week of check-outs to make sure Ingenuity is functioning properly, even as they drive Perseverance a distance away to a lookout point where it can safely observe the helicopter’s test flight on Mars, presently targeted for April 11th. If successful this will be the first powered flight ever achieved on another world.

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Ingenuity unfolded and ready for placement on ground

9:59 am

Ingenuity unfolded
Click for full image.

The photo to the right, taken yesterday, shows Perseverance’s Ingenuity helicopter now vertical with its legs deployed, hanging from the bottom of the rover and ready for placement on the ground.

The next step will be drop Ingenuity those last few inches. Once released Perseverance will quickly drive away, as it will no longer be providing power to the helicopter and will instead be blocking its solar panels from sunlight.

Perseverance will then proceed to its lookout post while engineers check out Ingenuity to make sure all is working.

The targeted flight date remains April 8th.

UPDATE: JPL just announced that it is delaying Ingenuity’s flight to April 11th. The announcement was done by a tweet, so provided no explanation as to why JPL decided to delay three days.

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Deployment process of Ingenuity begins

9:15 am

Ingenuity on the bottom of Perseverance
Click for full image.

Ingenuity vertical under Perseverance
Click for full image.

The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, shows the Ingenuity helicopter attached to the base of the Perseverance rover, with its left end (the white box in the middle) now lowered. Previously the helicopter was stored horizontal against the rover’s base.

This photo was taken yesterday by Perseverance’s Watson camera, which provides images of the rover’s bottom and wheels.

The deployment process has only begun. They need to get that white box vertical and on the ground, then unfold the blades that are attached above it. I suspect as the base is dropped the two blades to the left will remain attached to Perseverance, thus partly unfolding them. I also suspect that full deployment of all four blades (the right two blades are what looks like a post with a bulbous end on the right of the base) will not occur until Ingenuity is fully detached and Perseverance has moved away. My error. I mistook the helicopter’s landing legs for its blades. Two of the legs (on the left) appear deployed, while two (on the right) remain in their stored position.

UPDATE: Ingenuity is now vertical, underneath Perseverance, as shown by the second image to the right.

These images are from yesterday, so these are actions that the rover and helicopter are doing autonomously. It appears from later images that the second set of legs began deploying next.

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Ingenuity to fly on Mars no earlier than April 8th

9:03 am

NASA and the Perseverance engineering team announced yesterday their specific plans for the first flights oft he Ingenuity helicopter, setting the flight date as no earlier than April 8th.

They are presently driving Perseverance to its “airfield,” a 33×33 foot area. The deployment then will take six days, because there are a number of steps involved to position and place the helicopter on the ground properly.

Once the team is ready to attempt the first flight, Perseverance will receive and relay to Ingenuity the final flight instructions from JPL mission controllers. Several factors will determine the precise time for the flight, including modeling of local wind patterns plus measurements taken by the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) aboard Perseverance. Ingenuity will run its rotors to 2,537 rpm and, if all final self-checks look good, lift off. After climbing at a rate of about 3 feet per second (1 meter per second), the helicopter will hover at 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface for up to 30 seconds. Then, the Mars Helicopter will descend and touch back down on the Martian surface.

Several hours after the first flight has occurred, Perseverance will downlink Ingenuity’s first set of engineering data and, possibly, images and video from the rover’s Navigation Cameras and Mastcam-Z. From the data downlinked that first evening after the flight, the Mars Helicopter team expect to be able to determine if their first attempt to fly at Mars was a success.

The data from this first attempt will determine what they do next.

UPDATE: Below the fold is an illustration of that planned first flight, showing that they hope to send the rover toward the north, take some images, and then fly it back to its airfield, with a second landing site option at the far end of its flight.
» Read more

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Perseverance dumps debris shield in preparation for Ingenuity deployment

8:59 am

Dumped debris shield under Perseverance
Click for full image.

On March 21st the Perseverance engineering team released the debris shield that had been attached to the bottom of the rover to protect the Ingenuity helicopter during its journey to Mars, and thus began the deployment process for releasing the helicopter itself.

The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, shows that debris shield on the ground. The rover will next drive away from this spot and find the flat area where the helicopter will be placed on the ground for its April flight.

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Engineers recharge Ingenuity’s batteries on its way to Mars

9:39 am

Engineers have successfully completed their first in-flight maintenance recharge of the batteries on Perseverance’s small test helicopter Ingenuity.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter received a checkout and recharge of its power system on Friday, Aug. 7, one week into its near seven-month journey to Mars with the Perseverance rover. This marks the first time the helicopter has been powered up and its batteries have been charged in the space environment.

During the eight-hour operation, the performance of the rotorcraft’s six lithium-ion batteries was analyzed as the team brought their charge level up to 35%. The project has determined a low charge state is optimal for battery health during the cruise to Mars.

They plan to do these partial recharges about once every two weeks during the trip to Mars to keep the battery charged the optimal amount.

About a month after Perseverance has landed in February 2020, it will find a large flat area to deploy Ingenuity, then move away. The helicopter will then begin a 30 day test program to see if it will be able to fly in the very thin Martian atmosphere, only about 1% as thick as Earth’s.

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Perseverance’s helicopter named Ingenuity

9:15 am

After sifting through the 28,000 name suggestions submitted by K through 12 American students for naming the Mars rover Perseverance, NASA has chosen to use a suggestion from an Alabama high school student to name the rover’s prototype test helicopter Ingenuity.

As a technology demonstration, Ingenuity is a high-risk, high-reward experiment. The helicopter will ride to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which is preparing for launch in July or August. For several months following the rover’s landing, Ingenuity will remain encapsulated in a protective cover to shield it from debris during entry, descent and landing. When the timing in the rover mission is right, Ingenuity will be deployed to stand and operate on its own on the surface of the Red Planet. If the 4-pound (2-kilogram), solar-powered craft – a combination of specially designed components and off-the-shelf parts – survives the cold Martian nights during its pre-flight checkout, the team will proceed with testing.

If successful during its 30-Martian-day (31-Earth-day) experimental flight test window, the small craft will prove that powered flight can be achieved at Mars, enabling future Mars missions to better utilize second-generation helicopters to add an aerial dimension to their explorations.

The student, Vaneeza Rupani, had proposed the name for the rover. She instead is honored for the helicopter.

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