What was so amazing about NASA's Mars Helicopter 'Ingenuity'?
Ingenuity is NASA's Mars Helicopter, which achieved the first 'powered flight on an extraterrestrial planet' on Mars, successfully completed 72 flights, far exceeding the schedule, and retired due to rotor blade damage. is. Although this aircraft made a tremendous contribution in the history of space engineering, when you hear the word 'helicopter', you may think 'helicopters are a technology that was created in the 20th century...' and give the impression that it is not that big of a deal. there is. Science media Ars Technica explained how innovative Ingenuity was.
It turns out NASA's Mars helicopter was much more revolutionary than we knew | Ars Technica
Ars Technica says the first and most obvious innovation is 'demonstrating that powered flight is possible on other planets.' Powered driving using a rover was achieved in the 1990s, but whether a helicopter-like aircraft would be able to operate in an environment completely different from Earth's is unclear until the first Ingenuity event in 2021. Until the flight, it was just a theoretical theory.
NASA's Mars helicopter successfully flies, the first feat in human history - GIGAZINE
by NASA/JPL-Caltech
Another, and perhaps more important, point is that Ingenuity uses off-the-shelf parts.
The air on Mars is so thin that the conditions are the same as flying at an altitude of about 24 km on Earth. For this reason, Ingenuity had to pay particular attention to the blades that support the aircraft. Commercially available parts were used for this purpose.
NASA's development team made Ingenuity as light as possible, keeping its total mass, including the blades, battery, computers, sensors, cameras, legs, and solar panels, to just under 2 kg.
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According to Ars Technica, the computer that operates the existing spacecraft ( RAD750 ) weighs 1 pound (about 450 g), but it was necessary to reduce this mass in order to fly Ingenuity. Therefore, the development team adopted Qualcomm's chip 'Snapdragon 801'. This is a chip that was used in smartphones around 2015.
RAD750 is designed based on technology from the 1990s and costs about $250,000 (about 37 million yen). In contrast, Snapdragon 801 is cheap enough to be installed in smartphones. Ars Technica expresses that by adopting this, ``a computer 100 times more powerful than everything that has been sent into deep space combined'' was created.
by NASA/JPL-Caltech
In addition to the chips, the batteries, sensors, cameras, etc. were mostly the same as commercially available ones, and it seems that they were not procured with space flight in mind. Nevertheless, all these components operated successfully until the rotor blades were physically damaged.
``This is a huge victory for engineers,'' said Teddy Tsanetos, leader of the development team. Ars Technica said, ``This experience has given us new knowledge that it can work in space even without space-spec hardware, and it has the potential to be cheaper, lighter, and more capable in every way.''Mission planners It's a sense of freedom that is almost unimaginable for anyone.'
NASA is already planning to manufacture a new aircraft, and at the time of writing the article, the ``Dragonfly Mission'' is underway to send a probe to Saturn's largest satellite ``Titan'' by 2028. This is a daring mission in which a car-sized nuclear-powered drone flies over the sands of Titan, which is in an orbit many times farther than Mars, and also confirms that it has an atmosphere similar to Earth's and the presence of liquid water. It is hoped that we will obtain evidence that will help us understand the possibility that primitive life forms were born on Titan, and the mechanism by which life originates. Ingenuity's data is also useful for this Dragonfly.
NASA announces Saturn's satellite exploration mission 'Dragonfly' aiming to discover extraterrestrial life - GIGAZINE
Ars Technica says, 'Ingenuity's success will prompt mission planners to Mars and other locations to consider using airborne vehicles. More than 100 years ago, the Wright brothers were among the would-be astronauts. 'The Ingenuity development team hopes that Ingenuity will open the door to new possibilities, just as it expanded our imaginations.'
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