![]() Entries for Flights 9 and 10 are seen here. Håvard Grip, chief pilot of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, documents the details of each flight in the mission’s logbook, The Nominal Pilot’s Logbook for Planets and Moons, after each flight. But lately, Team Ingenuity has been taking their solar-powered rotorcraft out for a spin like never before. Every time Ingenuity goes airborne, it covers new ground, offering a perspective no previous planetary mission could achieve. With its first flight entering the mission logbook more than two-and-a-half years ago, the helicopter has exceeded its planned 30-day mission by 32 times and has flown 66 times. Ingenuity was originally slated to fly no more than five times. They are ready to fly.”Īt around the same time, and about 100 million miles (161 million kilometers) away, Ingenuity was being commanded to try things the Mars Helicopter team never imagined they would get to do. “These more efficient blades are now more than a hypothetical exercise. “We spun our blades up to 3,500 rpm, which is 750 revolutions per minute faster than the Ingenuity blades have gone,” said Tyler Del Sesto, Sample Recovery Helicopter deputy test conductor at JPL. ![]() Longer and stronger than those used on the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the carbon-fiber blades reached near-supersonic speeds during testing. For three weeks in September, a team monitored sensors, meters, and cameras as the blades endured run after run at ever-higher speeds and greater pitch angles.Ī dual rotor system for the next generation of Mars helicopters is tested in the 25-Foot Space Simulator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Sept.15. To find a space big enough to create a Martian atmosphere on Earth, engineers looked to JPL’s 25-foot wide, 85-foot-tall (8-meter-by-26-meter) space simulator – a place where Surveyor, Voyager, and Cassini got their first taste of space-like environments. The challenge is, as the blade tips approach supersonic speeds, vibration-causing turbulence can quickly get out of hand. NASA thinks these blades could enable bigger, more capable Mars helicopters. ![]() The next-generation carbon fiber rotor blades being tested on Earth are almost 4 inches (more than 10 centimeters) longer than Ingenuity’s, with greater strength and a different design. On Mars, you have the real off-world conditions you could never truly re-create here on Earth.” That includes a whisper-thin atmosphere and significantly less gravity than on Earth.Īdvanced Rotor Technology for Mars Exploration “Here on Earth, you have all the instrumentation and hands-on immediacy you could hope for while testing new aircraft components. “Our next-generation Mars helicopter testing has literally had the best of both worlds,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager and manager for the Mars Sample Recovery Helicopters. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Ingenuity: Bridging Earth and Mars Video on the left was captured by the Mastcam-Z on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover the black-and-white video on the right was taken by Ingenuity’s downward-pointing Navcam. This video combines two perspectives of the 59th flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Meanwhile, the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has achieved new altitude and airspeed records on the Red Planet in the name of experimental flight testing. On this world, a new rotor that could be used with next-generation Mars helicopters was recently tested at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL) in Southern California, spinning at near-supersonic speeds (0.95 Mach). (Art concept of a future drone on Mars.) Engineers will go beyond the ends of the Earth to find more performance for future Mars helicopters.įor the first time in history, two planets have been home to testing future aircraft designs. This pioneering work in rotorcraft technology is enhancing our understanding of flight in different atmospheric conditions, marking a significant step in Mars exploration. NASA has conducted dual-planet aircraft tests, with advanced rotor testing on Earth and record-breaking flights by the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.
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