The helicopter Ingenuity of the mission Mars 2020 has been one of the great achievements of the POT in space exploration. He reached the surface of Mars, along with the rover Perseverancein February 2021. It was planned to carry out 5 flights through the Martian atmosphere within 1 month, but in the end exceeded all expectations reaching 72 in a period of 2 years and 11 months. They were no longer due to the accident that Ingenuity suffered in January of this year, and which broke its blades, preventing it from taking flight again. But what exactly happened?
After eleven months of research, NASA and the manufacturer of Ingenuity, AeroVironmenthave identified the most likely cause of the accidentwhich we now know took place while attempting to land on Flight 72.
The team of engineers and scientists that has carried out the research has not had it easy to carry out an analysis of this type on a planet that is located at an average distance, greater or lesser depending on the orbits, of 225 million kilometers. Ingenuity also did not have a black box on board, so researchers have had to reach conclusions from limited data and images.
‘While there are multiple viable scenarios with the data available, we have one that we believe is the most likely: the lack of texture on the surface provided very little information to the navigation system‘, he pointed out Håvard Gripthe first Ingenuity pilot at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a press release.
They began by analyzing the terrain on which Ingenuity operated during its flight 72, on January 18 of this year. The helicopter’s navigation system tracked visual features on the surface using a downward facing camera. In this way, Ingenuity could distinguish pebbles and other features to determine its position. But on his last flight he was over a region of Jezero Crater filled with steep, relatively smooth sand ripples.
The navigation system uses these visual cues to help determine the vehicle’s speed and ensure that return to the surface with almost no lateral movement, achieving a soft landing. According to the vehicle’s data, on this last flight the navigation system was not able to identify enough features to accurately calculate its position and speed.
So, when Ingenuity landed, had a horizontal velocity that caused a strong impact, tilting and rolling. One of the propellers was completely torn off—rather than partially broken—which drained power from the vehicle and led to a loss of communication.
Surprisingly, the vehicle was able to partially recharge with its solar panels and continues to communicate about once a week with the Perseverance roverwhich continues to operate on Mars. This will continue for a little while longer, before the rover and helicopter lose direct line of communication.
Ingenuity’s success has led NASA engineers to begin planning possible successor missions, including a larger ‘Martian helicopter’ that could carry scientific instruments to study areas inaccessible to rovers.