The mighty little Mars Helicopter Ingenuity has successfully completed its 15th flight on Mars, flying for 128 seconds in another scouting expedition to aid the Perseverance rover as it collects rocks and dust for future study into ancient forms of life on the Red Planet.
NASA JPL tweeted on Monday the successful 15th Ingenuity flight after earlier reporting it was to take place no earlier than Nov. 6.
Ingenuity was expected to fly at 2,700 RPM to compensate for low-density summer air on Mars. It was scheduled as the second such flight at high RPM after the first on Oct. 24 at Jezero Crater, which proved it can fly in the coming summer months.
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Ingenuity’s first flight took place April 19, after it landed on Mars on the belly of Perseverance on Feb. 18 on Jezero Crater. It was originally intended as a technology demonstration of a drone’s ability to fly on Mars where its operations must be completely autonomous, following a flight plan sent to its computers in advance. Because of the great distance from Earth to Mars, up to 249 million miles, it takes up to 24 minutes for communications to reach Perseverance and Ingenuity, requiring autonomous abilities.
Vandi Verma, chief engineer for Mars Perseverance robotics operations, described the need for autonomous robots like Perseverance and Ingenuity and the value of robots in future missions. She delivered a virtual keynote Tuesday at Fierce Electronics’ Autonomous Technologies Summit.
“Autonomy is certainly something we’re using more and more of and see in the future as something we’ll continue to use. One of the reasons is latency and bandwidth,” she said.
“Because of this latency [with a 24 minute delay to Mars] we need a lot of onboard fault protection. There’s no hitting the emergency stop... Anything that could cause irreparable damage [means] we need to make sure it’s autonomous…With autonomy there are a lot of applications that are possible.”
Using high resolution cameras, she described how autonomous navigation is possible on Mars. On a recent drive for Perseverance, the rover needed to cross a barrier to reach a spot beyond the horizon. By using auto nav technology, the rover was able to complete the trip in a single Martian day, rather than needing two days, when time is of the essence.
“Efficiency starts to become an issue,” she said. “You are driving large distances without Earth in the loop.” A wide angle camera image helps scientists filter out objects that it doesn’t need to see to prioritize larger and more potentially interesting images. “We are driving larger distances. With added autonomy we are able to increase the [objects] we are able to collect… Autonomy leads to the need for more autonomy.”
With Ingenuity, flying requires “closed loop controls,” she said. The helicopter is being used to fly to ahead to each next stop of Perseverance as the rover digs at a location to figure out if the upcoming terrain is navigable and the best path to take.”Now we have multiple autonomous robots and are coordinating them…This results in even more possibilities… Autonomy is certainly something we’re going to see more and more of in space.”Editor’s Note: All the presentations from Autonomous Technologies Summit, including Verma’s, are available on-demand by registering for the free event.