1 of 6 | An illustration depicts the Mars helicopter Ingenuity on the Red Planet. Image courtesy of NASA
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Aug. 30 (UPI) — Ingenuity, the remarkable $80 million helicopter that has conducted 55 successful flights on Mars since April 2021, will continue its mapping mission as long as it remains operational, according to Ted Tzanetos, the former team lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Tzanetos, who oversaw the development of the 4-pound Ingenuity helicopter, is now involved in the creation of a recovery helicopter designed to collect geological samples of Martian air, soil, and rocks that have been gathered by the Perseverance rover, which landed on the Red Planet with Ingenuity in February 2021.
“We have pushed our old Ingenuity engineering model to its limits,” said Tzanetos in a recent telephone interview. “Currently, we are in the process of constructing our first full-scale prototype to be tested in September.”
This will be one of many tests conducted to ensure that lightweight helicopters can effectively assist in retrieving Martian samples, which will be loaded into a rocket-propelled container for transportation back to Earth.
NASA plans to launch the Sample Retrieval Lander in 2028, which will touch down on Mars as close as possible to the Jezero Crater and river delta, the landing site of Perseverance.
Originally, NASA intended to use Perseverance to transfer the geological samples directly to the retrieval lander. However, this approach would require complex maneuvering for the rover and its robotic arm, posing a risk to the mission’s success. Therefore, the success of Ingenuity’s flights convinced managers that it could serve as a prototype for sample recovery helicopters.
Ingenuity went silent in April, leading controllers to fear that it had been disabled or destroyed. However, on June 28, Ingenuity communicated with the Perseverance rover, providing the first sign of life since going silent after its 52nd flight.
Subsequent flights, including a 25-second hop and a 143-second surveying mission, confirmed that Ingenuity was still operational and ready for further missions.
With the issue resolved, engineers now focus on demonstrating the coordination between Perseverance and Ingenuity, as the two helicopters will play a primary role in the sample recovery operations. New helicopters, slightly larger and equipped with more advanced instruments, will work alongside Perseverance to locate and verify the containers holding the collected samples.
Ingenuity’s flights on Mars have been a milestone in aerospace engineering, proving that a helicopter can operate successfully in an atmosphere with barely 0.7% of Earth’s atmospheric pressure. The unique carbon fiber blades designed specifically for the Martian environment allowed Ingenuity to overcome the challenges posed by the thin atmosphere.
The ultimate goal of the mission is to bring back samples from Mars, potentially providing historic findings related to the presence of past or present microbial life on the planet. However, the mission is ambitious and will require collaboration with the European Space Agency.
“ESA is working with NASA to explore mission concepts for an international Mars Sample Return campaign,” the agency said. “Returning samples to Earth from Mars is expected to be the most complex robotic space flight campaign ever attempted.”
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