Illustration of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) mission controllers acquired affirmation on Thursday, Might 5, 2022, that the company’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter had re-established communications with the Perseverance rover. Earlier within the week, the rotorcraft had missed a deliberate communications session with the rover – for the primary time in over a 12 months of operations on the floor of Mars. Perseverance serves as the bottom station for Ingenuity, permitting the helicopter to ship knowledge to and obtain instructions from Earth.
Whereas extra knowledge downlinks and evaluation are required, the Ingenuity and Perseverance groups consider they've recognized the supply of the anomaly and devised a plan to renew regular operations.
Ingenuity turned the first powered plane to function on one other world on April 19, 2021. Designed to carry out as much as 5 experimental take a look at flights over a span of 30 Martian days (sols), or near 31 Earth days, the rotorcraft has now flown over 4.2 miles (6.9 kilometers) throughout 28 sorties whereas working from the floor of the Pink Planet for over a 12 months.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this picture utilizing its Left Mastcam-Z Digicam. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras positioned excessive on the rover’s mast. This picture was acquired on June 15, 2021 (Sol 114). Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Knowledge downlinked signifies that the communications dropout on Might 3, Sol 427 of the Perseverance rover’s mission at Mars, was a results of the solar-powered helicopter coming into a low-power state, probably as a result of seasonal improve within the quantity of mud within the Martian ambiance and decrease temperatures as winter approaches. The mud diminishes the quantity of daylight hitting the photo voltaic array, decreasing Ingenuity’s capacity to recharge its six lithium-ion batteries. When the battery pack’s state of cost dropped beneath a decrease restrict, the helicopter’s field-programmable gate array (FPGA) was powered down.
The FPGA manages Ingenuity’s operational state, switching the opposite avionics components on and off as wanted to maximise energy conservation. It additionally operates the warmers that allow the helicopter to outlive frigid Martian nights, maintains exact spacecraft time, and controls when the helicopter is scheduled to get up for communications periods with Perseverance.
When the FPGA misplaced energy throughout the Martian night time, the helicopter’s onboard clock – which designates the time that communications with Perseverance happen – reset. And Ingenuity’s heaters, so very important to retaining electronics and different parts inside operational temperatures – turned off. When the Solar rose the following morning and the photo voltaic array started to cost the batteries, the helicopter’s clock was not in sync with the clock aboard the rover. Primarily, when Ingenuity thought it was time to contact Perseverance, the rover’s base station wasn’t listening.
To ensure Perseverance would hear a name, Perseverance mission controllers at JPL commanded the rover to spend nearly all of Sol 429 (Might 5) listening for the helicopter’s sign. It got here at 11:45 a.m. native Mars time. The information transmitted was restricted to intentionally protect battery cost, however the helicopter’s important well being and security knowledge have been nominal. The radio hyperlink between Ingenuity and Perseverance was steady, spacecraft temperatures have been inside expectation, the photo voltaic array was recharging the battery at a fee anticipated for this season, and the battery was wholesome, containing 41% of a full cost.
However one radio communications session doesn't imply Ingenuity is out of the woods. The elevated (light-reducing) mud within the air means charging the helicopter’s batteries to a stage that can enable necessary parts (just like the clock and heaters) to stay energized all through the night time presents a major problem.
Every night time for the previous three sols, Ingenuity’s heaters have kicked in when its battery temperature was beneath 5 levels Fahrenheit (minus 15 levels Celsius). Whereas on, the warmers saved the temperature of important helicopter parts from dropping farther – right down to the ambient environmental temperature of minus 112 levels Fahrenheit (minus 80 levels Celsius). However the group believes that the battery couldn’t maintain the power draw of the onboard heaters all through the night time.
“Now we have all the time identified that Martian winter and mud storm season would current new challenges for Ingenuity, particularly colder sols, a rise in atmospheric mud, and extra frequent mud storms,” mentioned Ingenuity Group Lead Teddy Tzanetos of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Each flight and each mile of distance flown past our authentic 30-sol mission has pushed the spacecraft to its limits every sol on Mars.”
The Ingenuity and Perseverance groups have designed a plan they hope will make a distinction. Their aim is to assist the helicopter’s battery accumulate sufficient of a cost throughout the subsequent few sols in order that it might assist all vital spacecraft methods throughout the chilly Martian night time. Uplinked yesterday, the brand new instructions decrease the purpose at which the helicopter energizes its heaters from when the battery falls beneath 5 levels Fahrenheit (minus 15 levels Celsius) to minus 40 levels Fahrenheit (minus 40 levels Celsius). The helicopter then shuts down shortly, reasonably than consuming the battery cost with the warmers. The group hopes this technique will enable the battery to retain no matter cost it collected throughout the day. The Ingenuity engineers hope that after a number of days of the helicopter’s array soaking within the restricted rays, the battery may have reached a degree the place the spacecraft can return to regular operations.
Permitting the warmers to stay off in a single day will preserve an excessive amount of battery power however may also expose parts to the chilly of Martian night time. Developed as a know-how demonstration to show that powered, managed flight on Mars is feasible, the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft carries many business off-the-shelf components that weren’t designed for the acute chilly of deep area operations.
“Our prime precedence is to take care of communications with Ingenuity within the subsequent few sols, however even then, we all know that there shall be important challenges forward,” mentioned Tzanetos. “I couldn't be prouder of our group’s efficiency during the last 12 months, not to mention our plane’s unbelievable achievements on Mars. We're hopeful that we will accumulate battery cost with a purpose to return to nominal operations and proceed our mission into the weeks forward.”
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