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Saturday, June 24, 2023

NASA's Mars Helicopter Ingenuity: 3D View | Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA's Mars Helicopter Ingenuity: 3D View | Jet Propulsion Laboratory

It is time to get out your red/blue glasses. The multicolor, stereo imaging Mastcam-Z on the Perseverance rover zoomed in to capture this 3D close-up of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter on mission sol 45. This was on Earth-date April 5, 2021. Casting a shadow on the Martian surface, Ingenuity is standing alone on its four landing legs next to the rover's wheel tracks. The experimental helicopter's solar panel, charging batteries that keep it warm through the cold Martian nights and power its flight, sits just above Ingenuity's two 1.2 meter (4 foot) long counter-rotating blades. Thirteen sols later, on April 19, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to perform powered, controlled flight on another planet. It has since gone on to complete more than 50 flights through the thin atmosphere of Mars.

Ingenuity's flights have repeatedly proven its ability to fly over a hundred million miles from Earth, without direct human control. Because radio signals take between 5–20 minutes to travel between Earth and Mars—depending on planetary positions—Ingenuity must operate autonomously, performing maneuvers planned, scripted and transmitted to it by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages this technology demonstration project for NASA Headquarters. 

Ingenuity's rotors measure 1.2 m (4 ft), and its entire body is 0.49 m (1 ft 7 in) tall. Its fuselage measures 13.6 cm × 19.5 cm × 16.3 cm (5.4 in × 7.7 in × 6.4 in), with four landing legs of 0.384 m (1 ft 3.1 in) each. It is operated by solar-charged batteries that power dual counter-rotating rotors mounted one above the other.

The Martian atmosphere is extremely thin—at the surface just about one percent of the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere at sea level.

Learn more about Ingenuity:

Ingenuity Fact Sheet:

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.

Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS), Arizona State University (ASU)
Image Date: April 5, 2021
Release Date: June 24, 2023

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