Ingenuity on historic 1st powered flight on another world

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Ingenuity not expected to survive the upcoming cold Martian winter

Ingenuity helicopter briefly goes silent on Mars; NASA scientists brace for Martian winter

Ingenuity helicopter briefly goes silent on Mars; NASA scientists brace for Martian winter

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Ingenuity Helicopter Briefly Goes Silent On Mars; NASA Scientists Brace For Martian Winter​

Ingenuity Team Lead Teddy Tzanetos said that the scientists are aware of the challenges the Martian winter will bring. "Our top priority is to maintain communications with Ingenuity in the next few sols, but even then, we know that there will be significant challenges ahead", he said in an update.

 

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Fortun Ridge Imaged on Ingenuity's Flight 27

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter scouted this ridgeline near the ancient river delta in Jezero Crater because it is of interest to Perseverance rover scientists. The image was captured on April 23, 2022.

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Fortun Ridge Imaged on Ingenuity's Flight 27​

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recently surveyed a ridgeline near the ancient river delta in Mars' Jezero Crater at request of the Perseverance rover's science team. On the left is the full image Ingenuity acquired of the ridgeline on April 23, 2022, during its 27th flight. The science team calls the line of rocky outcrops running from the upper left to middle right of the main image "Fortun Ridge." Enlarged at right is a close-up of one of the ridgeline's rocky outcrops.

This portion of Jezero Crater is of interest to the science team because of the clear exposure of the rocky outcrops that define the boundary between two abutting crater floor geologic units, "Séítah" and "Máaz." The geology of both units is thought to be of igneous (volcanic) origin.

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which also manages the project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, and NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity's development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Martin Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System.

 

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Keeping Our Sense of Direction: Dealing With a Dead Sensor

As the season has turned to winter in Jezero Crater, conditions have become increasingly challenging for Ingenuity, which was designed for a short flight-test campaign during the much warmer Martian spring.

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Keeping Our Sense of Direction: Dealing With a Dead Sensor

Written by Håvard Grip, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Chief Pilot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

As the season has turned to winter in Jezero Crater, conditions have become increasingly challenging for Ingenuity, which was designed for a short flight-test campaign during the much warmer Martian spring. Increased amounts of dust in the atmosphere, combined with lower daytime temperatures and shorter days, have impacted Ingenuity’s energy budget to the point where it is unable to keep itself warm throughout the Martian nights. In its new winter operations paradigm, Ingenuity is effectively shutting down during the night, letting its internal temperature drop to about minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 80 degrees Celsius) and letting the onboard electronics reset. This new way of operating carries with it risks to Ingenuity’s electronic components, many of which are not designed to survive the temperatures they are being exposed to at night. Moreover, extreme temperature cycles between daytime and nighttime tend to cause stresses that can result in component failure.

Over the past several sols on Mars, the Ingenuity team has been busy recommissioning the helicopter for flight, going through a series of activities that include preflight checkout of sensors and actuators and a high-speed spin of the rotor. These activities have revealed that one of the helicopter’s navigation sensors, called the inclinometer, has stopped functioning. A nonworking navigation sensor sounds like a big deal – and it is – but it’s not necessarily an end to our flying at Mars.

Navigation Sensors

When Ingenuity is flying, the onboard flight control system keeps close track of the helicopter’s current position, velocity, and orientation. It does so with the help a sensor suite consisting of:

• an inertial measurement unit (IMU), which measures accelerations and angular rates in three directions
• a laser rangefinder, which measures the distance to the ground
• a navigation camera, which takes pictures of the ground below

The data from these sensors is processed by a set of algorithms implemented on Ingenuity’s navigation computer. For the algorithms to function properly, they must be initialized prior to takeoff with an estimate of Ingenuity’s roll and pitch attitude. This is where the inclinometer comes in.

The inclinometer consists of two accelerometers, whose sole purpose is to measure gravity prior to spin-up and takeoff; the direction of the sensed gravity is used to determine how Ingenuity is oriented relative to the downward direction. The inclinometer is not used during the flight itself, but without it we are forced to find a new way to initialize the navigation algorithms prior to takeoff.

Impersonating the Inclinometer

Ingenuity’s sensor suite provides some redundancy when it comes to sensing attitude on the ground. The IMU contains accelerometers, which – just like the accelerometers within the inclinometer – can be used to estimate the initial attitude. Unlike the inclinometer, the IMU is not purpose-built for sensing static orientation, so its initial attitude estimates will generally be somewhat less accurate. However, we believe an IMU-based initial attitude estimate will allow us to take off safely and thus provides an acceptable fallback that will allow Ingenuity to resume flying.

Taking advantage of this redundancy requires a patch to Ingenuity’s flight software. The patch inserts a small code snippet into the software running on Ingenuity’s flight computer, intercepting incoming garbage packets from the inclinometer and injecting replacement packets constructed from IMU data. To the navigation algorithms, everything will look as before, the only difference being that the received inclinometer packets do not actually originate from the inclinometer.

Anticipating that this situation could potentially arise, we prepared the required software patch prior to last year’s arrival on Mars and kept it on the shelf for this eventuality. We are therefore able to move quickly with the update, and the process of uplinking it to Ingenuity is already underway.

Returning to Service

If all goes well, over the next few sols, the team expects to finalize uplinking and applying the software patch, which will be followed by commissioning activities to ensure the new software is operating as planned. Barring additional surprises, we anticipate that Ingenuity will take to the skies for Flight 29 – a repositioning move to the southwest designed to keep us within communication range of Perseverance – in the near future.

 

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You Can't Keep a Good Mars Helicopter Down: Ingenuity Notches Flight 29

Fly, little buddy, fly!

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NASA Mars Helicopter Lives, Notches Remarkable 29th Flight​

The Ingenuity helicopter's first 28 flights on Mars were phenomenal, but its 29th may be one of its most impressive achievements. The wunderkind rotorcraft survived technical glitches, a dead sensor and brutal winter conditions to lift itself once again into the Martian sky.

NASA JPL confirmed the successful flight in a tweet Tuesday, saying the chopper completed the 66.6-second journey over the weekend, traveling 587 feet (179 meters) across Mars. Ingenuity's previous flight, No. 28, took place at the end of April.

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NASA's Ingenuity helicopter makes 30th Martian flight

It was the first liftoff for Ingenuity in more than two months.

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NASA's Ingenuity helicopter makes 30th Martian flight​

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Ingenuity helicopter on Mars heads toward ancient river delta on 31st flight

The Tuesday (Sept. 6) flight covered 318 feet (97 meters) of Martian ground.

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Ingenuity helicopter heads toward ancient river delta on 31st Martian flight​

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter just flew for the 31st time on Mars, acing a short hop that took it closer to an ancient Red Planet river delta.


During the Mars sortie, which occurred on Tuesday (Sept. 6), the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity flew for nearly 56 seconds and covered about 318 feet (97 meters) of horizontal distance, according to the mission team's flight log(opens in new tab).

The flight took Ingenuity toward the remnants of a long-dry river delta that the little chopper's robotic partner, NASA's Perseverance rover, has been exploring for the past five months or so.

 

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Ingenuity Mars helicopter soars on 32nd flight

The Sept. 18 flight covered about 308 feet (94 meters) of Red Planet ground.

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Ingenuity Mars helicopter soars on 32nd flight​

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter captured this photo on its 32nd Martian flight, on Sept. 18, 2022. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter has flown again, taking to the Martian skies for the second time in as many weeks.

Ingenuity traveled about 308 feet (94 meters) on Sunday (Sept. 18), staying aloft for more than 55 seconds and reaching a maximum speed of 10.6 mph (17.1 kph), according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory(opens in new tab) (JPL) in Southern California, which manages the Mars helicopter's mission.

Sunday's flight was the 32nd for Ingenuity overall and its second this month; the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) rotorcraft also lifted off on Sept. 6.

That earlier flight took Ingenuity closer to an ancient river delta on the floor of Mars' Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) hole in the ground that the helicopter and its robotic partner, the Perseverance rover, have been exploring since February 2021. Presumably, Sunday's sortie continued that progress, as Ingenuity team members have said that getting to the delta is a near-term priority.


Perseverance has been studying the delta for several months now. The car-sized rover has collected four rock samples from the formation since July, two of them from a stone that's rich in organic molecules, the carbon-containing building blocks of life.

Researchers will be able to study that intriguing material in detail here on Earth, if all goes according to plan: NASA and the European Space Agency are teaming up to bring the rover's samples to our planet, perhaps as early as 2033.

The sample-return architecture includes two Ingenuity-like helicopters capable of carrying sample tubes from one or more depots on Jezero's floor to the rocket that will launch them off the Red Planet. (That rocket, and the other robots that will help get the samples to Earth, remain in development.) It's unclear at the moment if the choppers will be pressed into such service; Perseverance may end up delivering the tubes to the rocket by itself.

Ingenuity initially embarked on a five-flight demonstration mission designed to show that rotorcraft flight is possible in the thin Martian atmosphere. The helicopter quickly aced that task and shifted into an extended mission, during which it's serving as a scout for Perseverance.

 

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Ingenuity Mars helicopter notches 33rd Red Planet flight

Ingenuity has been busy lately.

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Ingenuity Mars helicopter notches 33rd Red Planet flight​

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on the Martian surface. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter has taken flight again, staying aloft for nearly a minute this past weekend on its 33rd extraterrestrial sortie.


Ingenuity, which is a part of NASA's life-seeking Perseverance rover mission, took to the skies of Mars on Saturday (Sept. 24), achieving a flight of just over 55 seconds. The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) rotorcraft soared roughly 33 feet (10 meters) in the air and moved about 365 ft (111 meters) before alighting in a new location, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages the missions of both Ingenuity and Perseverance.

"If you look closely at this image, you’ll see Ingenuity’s leg and tiny shadow," JPL officials said via Twitter on Tuesday(opens in new tab) (Sept. 27).

Ingenuity is helping Perseverance explore Jezero Crater, which hosted a lake and a river delta in the ancient past. Later in the 2020s, NASA and the European Space Agency together plan to launch a sample-return mission to the region, which will use helicopters much like Ingenuity to pick up samples gathered by Perseverance and haul them to a rocket for a launch back to Earth.

The team has framed the sample-return mission, and Perseverance's cache of samples, as crucial to help understand the history of the Red Planet and the potential for life on Mars.

Ingenuity's shadow is visible at the bottom left of this image during its 33rd flight, on Sept. 24, 2022. (Image credit: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Perseverance, meanwhile, met some challenges while trying to perform a rock abrasion earlier in the week. A blog post(opens in new tab) Wednesday (Sept. 28) from JPL said the rock, nicknamed "Chiniak," completely broke apart after the Martian surface reacted in an unexpected way to Perseverance's tools.

"While we had to forgo abrasion proximity science on this target, we gained information about the cohesiveness and strength of the rock and had the opportunity to observe and compare both freshly broken and weathered rock surfaces," Eleanor Moreland, a Ph.D. student at Rice University, wrote in the post.

"Thanks to the quick work of the science and engineers, a new target was selected for a successful abrasion just a couple of days later," Moreland added

 

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NASA's Ingenuity helicopter gears up for another flight on Mars | Science-Environment

Read more about NASA's Ingenuity helicopter gears up for another flight on Mars on Devdiscourse

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NASA's tiny Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, is gearing up for another flight, Flight 34, on the Red Planet. Scheduled for Thursday, November 10, the upcoming flight will be a short test flight, during which the tiny rotorcraft will hover for less than 20 seconds at about 16 feet (5 meters), according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the project for the agency.

During the last aerial commute, i.e. Flight 33, on September 24, 2022, a tiny piece of foreign object debris (FOD) ended up on the tiny rotorcraft's foot, which was captured by the navigation camera (Navcam) onboard the helicopter. Luckily, it came off and did not impact the flight.

NASA's Ingenuity hitched a ride to Mars on the Perseverance rover in July 2020 and landed at the planet's Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. The tiny rotorcraft has survived more than a year beyond its original planned lifetime on the Red Planet.

 

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity aces 1st flight after major software update

The update will make Ingenuity more capable in hilly terrain.

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity aces 1st flight after major software update​

The update will make Ingenuity more capable in hilly terrain.

An image of the Mars surface taken by the Ingenuity helicopter's navigation camera during a flight testing out a new software system on Nov. 22, 2022. (Image credit: NASA)

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity has performed its shortest-ever flight, the first after a major software update that will allow the little chopper to land more safely and navigate over rugged terrain.



Ingenuity's 34th flight, which took place on Tuesday (Nov. 22), lasted only 18 seconds and saw the helicopter briefly hover after takeoff above Mars' surface before landing just 16 feet (5 meters) away from its starting point. The flight, the first since Sept. 29, was the first try-out of a new software system that was beamed to Ingenuity from Earth to improve its ability to operate in the rugged terrain that its parent Perseverance rover is currently exploring.


Ingenuity is an extremely successful technology demonstration, but it was built to navigate in smooth terrain, such as Wright Brothers Field, where it was first deployed in April 2021. The helicopter has been nailing one flight after another, prompting its ground control teams to dare to begin sending the flying robot into more complicated landscapes.

These more daring flights required the Ingenuity team to search for level airfields that are free of rocks that could damage the helicopter during landing. Because Jezero Crater, which the helicopter and Perseverance are exploring, is rather rocky, those flat, safe airfields have been hard to find. The new software will use Ingenuity's downward-facing camera to detect risky objects before landing and steer Ingenuity to avoid them, allowing the chopper to use smaller airfields.



"While in flight, Ingenuity will identify the safest visible landing site," the Ingenuity team said in a statement(opens in new tab). "When preparing to land, Ingenuity will then divert over to this selected site."


The software will also make Ingenuity more confident in flight. Since the helicopter was designed to fly over flat fields, its cameras previously could get confused by seeing a hilly landscape underneath. The old software would think the helicopter was veering, which would make it actually veer while in flight in a misguided attempt to stabilize its course.

"Over long flights, navigation errors caused by rough terrain must be accounted for, requiring the team to select large airfields," the Ingenuity team said in the statement. "This new software update corrects this flat-ground assumption by using digital elevation maps of Jezero Crater to help the navigation software distinguish between changes in terrain and vehicle movement."


With the new software, Ingenuity will be able to scout a wider range of terrain types for Perseverance to explore in detail.

"We’re all excited to see where this update will allow us to take Ingenuity’s journey next!" the team wrote.

 

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity soars higher than ever on 35th Red Planet flight

The little chopper got 46 feet (14 meters) above Mars' red dirt on Saturday (Dec. 3).

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity soars higher than ever on 35th Red Planet flight​

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter keeps raising the bar for Red Planet flight.


The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity soared 46 feet (14 meters) above Mars' red dirt on Saturday (Dec. 3), setting a new altitude record on its 35th off-Earth flight.

The little chopper's previous record was 39 feet (12 m), achieved on three previous Mars flights. (You can get a rundown of all 35 Ingenuity sorties in the mission's flight log.

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Ingenuity landed with NASA's Perseverance rover on the floor of Jezero Crater in February 2021. The helicopter soon deployed from the rover's belly and embarked on a campaign to show that powered flight is possible in the thin Mars atmosphere.


That initial technology-demonstrating phase lasted less than a month and consisted of just five sorties. But NASA soon granted Ingenuity a mission extension, keeping the rotorcraft flying. Its current objectives center on pushing the envelope of Red Planet flight and performing reconnaissance for Perseverance.

The rover is searching for signs of ancient Mars life on the floor of the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero, which hosted a lake and a river delta billions of years ago. Perseverance is also collecting and caching a series of samples, which a joint NASA-European Space Agency campaign will return to Earth, perhaps as early as 2033.

Saturday's flight was the first for Ingenuity since Nov. 22 and just the second it has performed since a major software update. That update, which took several weeks to install, "provides Ingenuity two major new capabilities: hazard avoidance when landing and the use of digital elevation maps to help navigate," mission team members wrote in a blog post late last month(opens in new tab).

Ingenuity covered about 49 feet (15 m) of horizontal distance on Saturday's flight, which lasted 52 seconds. The helicopter has now traveled a total of 24,302 feet (7,407 m) and stayed aloft for 59.9 minutes on its 35 Mars sorties, according to the mission flight log.

 

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity aces 36th Red Planet flight

Ingenuity stayed aloft for just over a minute on Dec. 10.

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity aces 36th Red Planet flight​

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter now has three dozen Mars flights under its belt.

The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity aced its 36th Red Planet sortie on Sunday (Dec. 10), staying aloft for 60.5 seconds on a flight that covered 361 feet (110 meters) of horizontal distance.

Sunday's hop came just a week after Ingenuity set a new altitude record, soaring 46 feet (14 m) above the floor of Mars' Jezero Crater on Dec. 3. The chopper got a maximum of 33 feet (10 m) above the red dirt this past Sunday, according to the mission's flight log(opens in new tab).

Ingenuity landed with NASA's Perseverance rover in February 2021, tasked with showing that powered flight is possible on Mars despite the planet's thin atmosphere.


The helicopter aced that primary objective during a five-flight campaign in the spring of 2021 Ingenuity then shifted into an extended mission during which it's pushing the boundaries of Red Planet flight and serving as a scout for Perseverance.

The rover, meanwhile, is hunting for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting dozens of samples. If all goes according to plan, this Mars material will be returned to Earth by a joint NASA/European Space Agency campaign, perhaps as early as 2033.

According to Ingenuity's flight log, the rotorcraft has traveled a total of 24,633 feet (7,517 m) across its 36 sorties and stayed airborne for nearly 61 minutes.

Perseverance is even more well-traveled. The car-sized rover has trekked a total of 8.53 miles (13.73 km) on the floor of Jezero, which harbored a lake and a river delta billions of years ago.

That's far from the rover record, however. NASA's Opportunity Mars rover put 28.06 miles (48.15 km) miles on its odometer while exploring the Red Planet from 2004 to 2018 — farther than any other robot has traveled on the surface of a world beyond Earth.

 

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Ingenuity Mars helicopter tests new software on 37th Red Planet flight (video)

The little chopper traveled 203 feet (62 meters) on Dec. 17.

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Ingenuity Mars helicopter tests new software on 37th Red Planet flight (video)​

The little chopper traveled 203 feet (62 meters) on Dec. 17.

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter flew for the 37th time on Saturday (Dec. 17), acing a hop designed in part to test the capabilities of its new software.



Ingenuity stayed aloft for 55 seconds and covered 203 feet (62 meters) of Red Planet ground on the flight, which was its third this month.


The main goals of Saturday's sortie were for Ingenuity "to reposition itself and test new flight software capabilities," officials with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages Ingenuity's mission, said via Twitter(opens in new tab) on Monday (Dec. 19).

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity captured this photo with its navigation camera on Dec. 17, 2022, during its 37th Red Planet flight. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

That new software, which was installed last month, allows Ingenuity to avoid hazards during landing and to use digital elevation maps for navigation purposes, mission team members have said(opens in new tab).



The rotorcraft landed on the floor of the Red Planet's Jezero Crater in February 2021 with NASA's Perseverance rover, which is hunting for signs of past Mars life and collecting samples for future return to Earth.


Ingenuity's primary mission was to show that aerial exploration is possible on Mars despite its thin atmosphere, which is just 1% as dense as that of Earth at sea level. The helicopter wrapped up that task over the course of five flights in the spring of 2021, then transitioned to an extended mission on which it's serving as a scout for Perseverance.

Ingenuity has now traveled a total of 24,867 feet (7,479 m) and stayed airborne for nearly 62 minutes during its 37 Red Planet flights, according to the mission's flight log(opens in new tab). Those numbers should continue to increase for a while, for the chopper remains in good health, team members have said.


Ingenuity's success is paving the way for future rotorcraft missions to the Red Planet. JPL is developing concepts for larger, more ambitious Mars helicopters that would gather science data, for example. And NASA plans to launch two Ingenuity-like craft to the Red Planet later in the 2020s to help bring Perseverance's samples home to Earth.

The baseline plan for the Mars sample-return campaign calls for Perseverance to deliver its samples to a rocket-equipped lander. That rocket will launch the samples to Mars orbit, where a European spacecraft will snag them and haul them to Earth, perhaps as early as 2033.


The helicopters will fly on the lander as a backup: If Perseverance isn't able to deliver the samples itself, the choppers will ferry them to the lander from depots on Jezero's floor. (Perseverance is taking two samples from each of its target rocks; it will store one set of samples on its body and cache the other set in depots.)

 

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Ingenuity made its 38th flight

The Ingenuity drone helicopter made its first flight in 2023. In its course, it overcame a distance of 110 meters above the Martian surface.

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38th flight of Ingenuity​

The first flight of Ingenuity in 2023 took place on January 4. Its goal was to move the spacecraft to a more convenient platform. The flight lasted 74.3 seconds. During this time, the device overcame a distance of 110 meters. The maximum height was 10 meters.

 

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You'll Need Keen Eyes to Spot NASA's Mars Helicopter in This Rover Image

Ingenuity is hiding out in the sandy Martian distance.

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