NASA Summary Reader Response Final (Janaish)

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 NASA's Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity

Part 1: Summary Description

On February 18, 2021, NASA's Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, and their rover, Perseverance, landed in Jezero Crater, Mars (Gohd, 2021). It is equipped with carbon-fiber rotors that measure up to 1.2 meters across. Its blades can spin up to a maximum speed of 2500 revolutions per minute. Ingenuity is the first aircraft to have flown on Mars. According to Mimi Aung, Ingenuity's project manager at NASA, it had been fully tested on Earth before it took off for its Mars mission. Ingenuity was not designed to help with research on Mars. Its main responsibility is to test flight on Mars and prove that flight is possible. Ingenuity faced several challenges on its mission to Mars, such as attempting flight in Mars' thin atmosphere and dealing with wind and dust storms, as well as receiving enough energy through its solar panels to power itself.

Ingenuity succeeded with the first three flights, flying each subsequent flight to higher altitudes and for longer durations. However, on its fourth flight attempt, the helicopter failed to shift to "flight mode," which resulted in a delay of the fourth flight. As the flight mission was going better than expected, Ingenuity had been tasked with finding a new flight location and taking pictures of the location on its fifth flight, all without the support of Perseverance nearby. For now, Ingenuity will continue to set new boundaries and explore more of Mars.

Part 2: Response Analysis

Thesis Statement: The Ingenuity helicopter is an innovative robotic design system for the Mars mission that serves as a technology showcase, but due to its flight specifications, carbon fiber blades, and communication antennae, it has relatively limited possibilities.

Discussion and Analysis

The pioneer helicopter, which flew on a different planet, can be described as a creative robotic design that opened up a new future for engineering robotic designs (Withrow et al., 2020). The innovative robotic design aimed to demonstrate a controlled flight for an aircraft in Mars surroundings. This is achieved through the design of flight specs. The important thing about the Ingenuity experimental process is that it opens an aerial exploration of Mars through its flights. At the same time, Ingenuity helps to make a validation of aerodynamics, operations, control, as well as navigation ideas of flight on Mars. Ingenuity is a creative design because the flights made on Mars open a door for future developments of new Mars robotic designs on other missions (Balaram et al., 2021). With data from Ingenuity flights, future helicopters can be deployed to help search for better science targets and investigations. 

The main ingenuity objective is just to test our ability to fly on Mars, and it serves only as a technological demonstration. This indicates that it has difficulties in becoming more than a demonstration. Flying on Mars is difficult since Mars's surface gravity is 40% of Earth, and the thin Mars atmosphere is an extreme factor for the helicopter to lift due to less density (Rogerson, 2021). Storms of wind and dust and ensuring that the drone has enough energy from its solar panel are additional difficulties. The robotic system design of the Mars helicopter was done using two blades (Withrow et al., 2020). The rotors were required to make very fast spins, more than any other known helicopter in the world. The rotors were designed to make at least 2400 rpm. Also, the blades of the Mars helicopter were much bigger than the body (Grady, 2021). The craft underwent a series of tests to get ready for flight, including heating up its rotor blades. The helicopter's blades initially wiggled, whirling only 50 rotations per minute. The craft continued by spinning the blades at 2,500 rpm, its maximum speed. The initial full-speed blade test had a problem, delaying the day of the craft's first anticipated flight (Gohd, 2021). The flight specs and the carbon fiber blades were clearly limited.

The technological advancement used in the design of Ingenuity is the communication antennae for signal transmission, which exposes the limited capability of the robotic design. In communication, the commands for the Mars helicopter are required to be sent earlier. The collected engineering data from the Mars helicopter arrives on Earth long after a flight has taken place. With the limited communication capability, Ingenuity was designed to make flight decisions on its own based on environmental concerns. This is due to the communication lags created by the distance between Mars and Earth, which make it impossible to fly the helicopter live (Withrow et al., 2020). 

Conclusion

To sum it up, although Ingenuity is a creative robotic design, it has limited capabilities based on its flight specs, carbon fiber blades, and antennae for communication. The design of Ingenuity and the achievement of a maiden flight on Mars planet is nothing short of an engineering marvel that opens a new engineering future for space missions. The Mars helicopter was a huge technological achievement, considering the harsh environmental conditions on Mars that were overcome through the design of improved flight specs, communication antennae, and carbon razor blades. Ingenuity is an engineering project that only sought to experiment with new heights for the first time with its unique feature components. The robotic design of Ingenuity is a demonstration of the high levels in the field of engineering. The Mars helicopter is a statement from NASA engineers that it is possible to develop a lightweight aircraft that can make a lift on another planet with a thin atmosphere and other harsh conditions. 

References

Balaram, J., Aung, M., & Golombek, M. P. (2021). The ingenuity helicopter on the perseverance rover. Space Science Reviews, 217(4), 1-11. https://sci-hub.ee/https:/link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-021-00815-w

Gohd, C. (2021, May 22). Mars helicopter Ingenuity: The first aircraft to fly on the Red Planet. Space.com. https://www.space.com/ingenuity-mars-helicopter-perseverance-rover

Grady, M. (2021, April 19). Mars: how Ingenuity helicopter made the first flight on another planet. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/mars-how-ingenuity-helicopter-made-the-first-flight-on-another-planet-159261

Rogerson, J. (2021, April 21). NASA's Ingenuity helicopter flight on Mars opens up a new frontiers in space exploration. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/nasas-ingenuity-helicopter-flight-on-mars-opens-up-new-frontiers-in-space-exploration-159401

Withrow, S., Johnson, W., Young, L. A., Cummings, H., Balaram, J., & Tzanetos, T. (2020). An advanced mars helicopter design. In ASCEND 2020 (p. 4028). https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20205008553/downloads/1441_Withrow_101220.pdf



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