Ingenuity, NASA’s autonomous Mars helicopter, was solely meant to finish 5 flights. However since its history-making first flight in April 2021, the helicopter has flown 28 instances, and preparation is underway for the twenty ninth. Relying on mud ranges and the schedule of the rover Perseverance, that flight may happen as quickly as later this week. However now Ingenuity faces a brand new problem: It’s unclear if the helicopter will survive the approaching Martian winter, which begins in July.
Since a Martian yr quantities to roughly two years on Earth, and the helicopter is within the northern hemisphere, that is Ingenuity’s first winter. Because the solstice approaches, days are getting shorter and nights longer, and dirt storms may turn into extra frequent. That each one means much less daylight for the photo voltaic panels mounted above the helicopter’s twin 4-foot rotor blades. Mud on photo voltaic panels lately spelled the top of operations for NASA’s InSight Mars lander, and the consequences of chilly on electronics is believed to have performed a task in the long run of the Alternative and Spirit Mars rover missions.
“We consider it’s survivable,” Dave Lavery, NASA’s program govt for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, instructed WIRED, however “each additional day is a present.” JPL Ingenuity workforce lead Teddy Tzanetos lately wrote in a NASA blog post that “every sol (Martian day) may very well be Ingenuity’s final.”
Final month, Ingenuity briefly misplaced contact with Earth because of a decline in battery life, the vast majority of which is devoted to heating. NASA reestablished contact with Ingenuity after two days, however because of battery ranges falling under 70 % and persistently decrease temperatures, Ingenuity will droop use of onboard heaters at night time to protect energy all through the four-month winter. Heaters usually kick in when the temperature falls under -5 Fahrenheit, a determine decreased to -40 after the battery energy scarcity and communications outage final month. Outside temperatures through the Martian winter can drop to -112 at night time, growing the chance of injury to electronics contained in the helicopter.
On Monday, NASA announced the failure of a sensor, delaying flight 29 and requiring NASA to uplink a software program patch and depend on one other sensor to manipulate Ingenuity’s navigation algorithms.
Mud storms are an X issue. A research published in Could from a workforce on the College of Houston examined information from NASA sensors over the span of 4 Martian years, and located that imbalances in photo voltaic power and heat climate within the south improve the chance of huge mud storms that may blanket the whole planet. Spring and summer season are referred to as storm seasons, however the chance of extreme storms reduces because the north approaches the winter solstice, says College of Houston affiliate professor Liming Li. However there’s a caveat: The research is world and doesn’t bear in mind any specific area. Situations can be totally different in craters than on the remainder of the floor, and the helicopter is working within the Jezero Crater.
“It’s robust to say,” Li stated when requested whether or not extra mud storms are on the best way. “It’s laborious to offer a transparent image for the radiation finances within the Jezero Crater earlier than we actually measure it.”
As Ingenuity halts regular flight exercise, the workforce will deal with transferring information like flight efficiency logs and high-definition photographs from the final eight flights and making software program upgrades. Primarily based on a climate model, NASA expects photo voltaic power ranges to rebound to a stage that permits the resumption of regular exercise this fall. By September or October, if Ingenuity is ready to regain the power to warmth its techniques at night time, it may resume common flight operations, scouting potential locations for the Perseverance rover to stash a set of rock and soil samples and discover what scientists consider was once a river delta throughout the Jezero Crater.