The First Powered Flight on Another Planet

On Earth humans have worked so much on flying, we have so many flying machines that come with tons of varieties. But on Mars, we are just getting started.                      

Why is flying on another terrestrial planet important? What are the benefits? How will it fly? In fact, it did fly on April 19, 2021, at 12:39 p.m EDT. The helicopter flew to a height of 10 feet and stayed airborne for just under 40 seconds. Even though Ingenuity hit the major milestone, the question of "How" still holds. There are a few dozen more questions when it comes to space exploration or in this case Mars Exploration. 

Exploration is our nature. We began as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the Stars - Carl Sagan

For centuries our ancestors looked at the stars and wondered. It was their daily favorite night show.

After the development of science and technology, scientists examined these bodies with telescopes and satellites. Rovers just give us a closer look. But they are painfully slow in speed and operation. Ingenuity has the advantage of flying 10 to 16 feet in the air while traveling relatively fast. It will scan the Martian terrain from a birds-eye view, which will make Perseverance's journey even smoother.

New world, new atmosphere, new challenges, new rules

Flying on Mars is not easy. There are dozens of challenges that NASA had to overcome to fly Ingenuity on Mars. 

Mars's atmosphere.

Mars has a very thin atmosphere. An atmosphere that is roughly 1% of Earth's. Which makes the flight notoriously hard. Why? Well, flying a rotor-craft means you spin the rotors fast enough to generate lift that overcomes the weight of the drone and the air drag. 

"Flying this kind of helicopter is equivalent to flying a similar helicopter on Earth on hundred thousand feet. You don't hear many helicopters at hundred thousand, I think 40 thousand is probably the record" said Bob Balaram, Cheif Engineer, Mars Helicopter. 

Basically, you are using air as thrust, but if there is not enough air, there is not enough thrust to lift the machine up when spun at the rate the helicopters do on Earth which is around 500 rpm (revolutions per minute). So you have to spin the rotors faster and faster to the point where you have enough thrust to fly. And on Mars, that is between 2300 rpm and 2900 rpm! Ingenuity has to spin its rotors five times faster! Those 35 grams (each) carbon fiber blades have to spin faster than any helicopter rotor on Earth to generate enough thrust to lift that 1.8 kg fuselage.

Space is hard and unpredictable. While its journey to Mars, Ingenuity had to face a lot of challenges. 

Earth's G-force, which exceeds 80G, was the first thing that Ingenuity had to overcome and after traveling 7 months in interplanetary space loaded with radiation. And finally, after pulling 9Gs on entry into the Martian atmosphere the helicopter needs to be deployed!

It is important to keep the electronics in Ingenuity warm because it is around -87° C on Mars! NASA scientists used CO2 as an insulation material for Ingenuity's electronics. Well, that's smart. You don't have to worry about the extra mass of the insulator as it is a gas. 

Our universe has limits. A lot of limits actually, it is the way our universe works. One of them is quite famous, it is the speed of light or the speed of electromagnetic waves, or the speed at which information travels. Which is 3*10^8 m/s (that is 3 followed by eight zeros). This speed limit causes a huge time delay when we are talking about flying a drone on another planet. If you send a signal to Mars, which is 303 million kilometers away, it takes around 20 minutes to reach Mars and 20 minutes on the way back. So if you send a command saying "You are clear to fly", Ingenuity will receive it 20 minutes later. This time delay simply doesn't allow us to control the flight from Earth. So if Ingenuity has to fly, it has to do it on its own. 

Ingenuity managed to capture Perseverance (top left corner)

According to Mimi Aung, Project Manager, Mars Helicopter, "Ingenuity has Gyros, Accelerometer, Camera, Altimeter, Inclinometer on-board and so using that sensor suite, real-time measurement, and estimations of the state of the vehicle are continuously made around 100 times a second, then that's fed in the closed-loop algorithm of the vehicle that takes the estimated state and then generates the corrections that needed at the blade level, and the blades are continuously being controlled."

There is a lot of things going on when you see the vehicle dead calm and going up and coming down. The machines are moving so fast to make a successful flight.

Ingenuity has no scientific discoveries to make. That is not its purpose. It was sent to Mars to show that or prove that we can fly on another planet. The flying machines can be used for a better scan of the terrain and to explore places where humans and rovers can't reach. This is that Wright Brothers moment from 1903, but now on a different planet. The application of technology has no limits. There is a lot to be amazed at, a lot to discover, and a lot to cherish. At the end of the day, exploration is what makes humans, humans. And space is the greatest exploration that Sapiens could ever think of!