NASA is about to release the world’s first study of off-world aircraft accidents. In addition to making history, the report will help the agency plan ahead for the next generation of flying vehicles that will help humanity explore Mars.
NASA engineers only intended the Mars Perseverance Rover’s Ingenuity helicopter to conduct up to five experimental test flights over 30 days in 2021. However, the experimental vehicle turned out to be much more durable than expected. Over the course of nearly three more years, Ingenuity ultimately flew 72 more times, totaling more than two hours of air travel and 30 times further than planned.
[Related: RIP Mars Ingenuity, the ‘little helicopter that could’]
However, the helicopter’s flying career ended on January 18, 2024, when a failed landing appeared to fatally damage the blades. But what caused Ingenuity to miscalculate its 72nd flight remained a mystery to NASA. Since then, a joint research team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and AeroVironment has spent months analyzing the available evidence and data.
“When you conduct an accident investigation 100 million miles away, you don’t have black boxes or eyewitnesses,” Ingenuity’s first pilot, Håvard Grip, said in the Dec. 10 JPLs. report announcement.
Grip explained that while there are now multiple possible scenarios based on the data, the team believes one explanation is the most likely for Ingenuity’s failed landing: the aircraft navigation system could not properly calculate its flight trajectory based on the sparse information provided by the camera while traveling. over relatively smooth Martian ground.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
As JPL explains, the data reviewed indicates that the helicopter’s navigation system began missing insufficient traceable surface features approximately 20 seconds after takeoff. Subsequent photographic analysis suggests that Ingenuity’s computer errors generated high horizontal velocity that exceeded the design limits of the rotor blades. This caused all four blades to break at their weakest points, while the resulting vibrations tore the remainder of one blade from the helicopter. It then rolled on the sand after crashing on Mars, when an excessive demand for onboard energy crippled Ingenuity’s communications array for about six days.
In a way, Ingenuity’s demise is also a testament to its resilience. NASA never expected the helicopter to travel as far as that specific area in the Jezero Crater on January 18. Instead of traveling over a rocky terrain covered in many visual coordinating cues as originally designed, Ingenuity was forced to attempt to handle an area of steep and relatively featureless sand ripples.
Despite all this, Ingenuity isn’t completely dead. As engineers helped restore the connection from Earth, the crashed helicopter’s computer regularly sends avionics and weather data to the Perseverance rover — information that could one day help human astronauts reach Mars.
In the meantime, NASA is using all this knowledge to plan for future Mars aircraft, some of which could be 20 times heavier than Ingenuity. On December 11, team members got a taste of the Mars Chopper a helicopter project, which could carry several kilos of equipment while autonomously exploring as much as 2 miles (3.2 km) of Mars per day. By comparison, Ingenuity traveled about 2,300 feet during its longest flight.
But scaling up is not always necessary. In addition to the Mars Chopper, engineers are also working on designs for vehicles that are smaller and lighter than Ingenuity’s four-pound, 19-inch-tall frame. According to Ingenuity project manager Teddy Tzanetos, the aircraft’s longevity and performance show how strong small packages can be on Mars.
“We are now approaching four years of continuous operations, which suggests that not everything needs to be bigger, heavier and radiation-hardened to function in the harsh environment of Mars,” he said.
