Veritasium - What Happened To The Mars Helicopter?
Ingenuity, a 680-gram helicopter made from off-the-shelf parts, was initially a 30-day technology demonstration on Mars. Despite skepticism and a limited budget, it successfully flew multiple times, proving flight is possible in Mars' thin atmosphere. The helicopter faced challenges like extreme cold, dust storms, and technical glitches but overcame them with innovative solutions, such as using its IMU to replace a failed inclinometer. Ingenuity's success has shifted NASA's perspective on using commercial components for space missions, showing they can withstand cosmic rays better than expected. This has paved the way for future Mars exploration with more advanced helicopters capable of carrying scientific payloads and exploring independently from rovers.
Key Points:
- Ingenuity's mission extended beyond its original 30 days due to its success, assisting the Perseverance rover by scouting ahead.
- The helicopter's design includes smartphone parts, demonstrating that commercial components can be viable for space missions.
- Ingenuity overcame challenges like dust storms and extreme temperatures by using innovative solutions, such as reprogramming its IMU to replace a failed inclinometer.
- NASA learned that off-the-shelf components can withstand cosmic rays, reducing the need for expensive, custom-built space-grade parts.
- Future Mars exploration will include more advanced helicopters, like the next-gen 'Chopper,' capable of carrying scientific payloads and exploring independently.
Details:
1. 🚁 Ingenuity: The Unexpected Mars Mission
1.1. Mission Overview
1.2. Challenges on Mars
1.3. Team's Response
1.4. Development and Budget
1.5. Mission to Mars
1.6. Ingenuity's Mission
1.7. Mission Success
2. 🌌 Beyond the Tech Demo: New Mission for Ingenuity
- Ingenuity's mission was extended beyond its initial 30-sol technology demonstration due to its success, now tasked with assisting the Perseverance rover by scouting areas on Mars that are too risky or costly for the rover to explore.
- The team had to adapt quickly as there were no predefined processes for the extended mission, requiring them to shift from meticulously planned and tested flights to flying into unknown territories.
- A significant challenge is that Ingenuity operates autonomously with a six-minute communication delay between Earth and Mars, more than its two-minute flight duration.
- Ingenuity uses a navigation camera to take 30 black-and-white images per second, analyzing surface features for movement, similar to an optical mouse, but this method is not 100% reliable, adding complexity to its autonomous operations.
- Specific challenges include navigating and mapping unknown terrain, managing battery and power constraints, and ensuring the reliability of its navigation system under new conditions.
3. ⚠️ Flight Challenges: Dust Storms and Errors
- During Flight 6, Ingenuity encountered a significant error 54 seconds into the flight, resulting in a 20-degree tilt and significant wobbling.
- The error was caused by a desynchronization between the arrival of a color image and a black and white image, leading to the system dropping the black and white image and introducing a lag.
- This lag caused Ingenuity to receive outdated information, resulting in overcorrection and exacerbated wobbling, creating a positive feedback loop.
- Despite the desynchronization being only one camera frame off, it had the potential to cause a 'death spiral' if not addressed.
- Ingenuity successfully executed an emergency landing, allowing JPL to diagnose the issue and implement a software patch to correct it.
- The software patch effectively resolved the problem, enabling Ingenuity to continue supporting the mission successfully over the next dozen flights.
- The resolution ensured that similar errors would be prevented in future flights, highlighting the importance of timely problem-solving and software updates in mission success.
4. 🌪️ Battling Martian Elements: Dust and Cold
- A dust storm near Jezero crater prompted the cancellation of Flight 19, highlighting the need for flexibility in mission planning.
- The six-day dust storm had winds gusting up to 20 meters per second, presenting a significant challenge to the mission.
- Dust accumulation reduced solar panel efficiency by 18%, impacting power supply and necessitating adjustments in flight durations.
- Dust also clogged mechanical components, particularly the servos, which required manual intervention to clear by wiggling them repeatedly.
- JPL had anticipated these issues but lacked time and budget for comprehensive solutions, illustrating the importance of resource allocation.
5. ❄️ Surviving Martian Nights: Ingenuity's Resilience
- Mars experiences intense temperature swings with daytime highs of 27°C and nighttime lows of -133°C, leading to physical stress on Ingenuity's components.
- The lack of atmosphere allows heat to escape quickly, causing significant temperature differentials that can damage electrical components through expansion and contraction.
- Temperature swings risk breaking soldered connections and freezing the battery's liquid electrolyte solution, potentially halting system function.
- Ingenuity uses resistance heaters, which consume 60-75% of battery power to keep sensitive components warm during Martian nights, as a solution to these challenges.
- As Mars enters winter, the increased need for heating could create a negative feedback loop, decreasing battery efficiency and power supply.
- Design improvements could include more effective insulation, advanced battery warming systems, and solar energy optimization to enhance Ingenuity's resilience.
6. 🔧 A Technical Glitch: Ingenuity's Near End
6.1. Problem Identification and Initial Concerns
6.2. Troubleshooting and Resolution
7. 📱 Phone Parts to the Rescue: Ingenuity's Reboot
- Ingenuity's inclinometer, essential for determining its physical orientation in 3D space, failed. Without it, flight would be impossible.
- Ingenuity is built using common smartphone parts, including a Samsung Galaxy S5 processor and Google Pixel 3 sensors, which naturally include accelerometers.
- Smartphones contain micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) that can measure acceleration and displacement, functioning similarly to an inclinometer.
- The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) team reprogrammed Ingenuity's computer to use the IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) from the Google Pixel 3 to replace the failed inclinometer.
- The IMU includes accelerometers and can provide the same data as the inclinometer, allowing Ingenuity to determine its initial altitude in roll and pitch.
- JPL successfully adapted smartphone technology to overcome the critical failure, turning a potential mission-ending issue into a successful reboot.
8. 🌠 Cosmic Rays and Robust Systems: Ingenuity's Unexpected Strength
8.1. Vulnerability to Cosmic Rays
8.2. Unexpected Resilience of Off-the-Shelf Components
8.3. Effective Strategy for Processor Selection
8.4. Operational Success and Adaptation
8.5. Pushing Flight Limits
8.6. Continued Photo Documentation
9. 🚀 Final Flights and Discoveries: Ingenuity's Legacy
- During its 71st flight, Ingenuity experienced degraded navigation and had to make an emergency landing due to insufficient landmarks for its camera to identify, similar to a previous issue on flight 6, but without a software fix.
- Despite a hard landing on flight 71, Ingenuity was structurally intact, which led to another attempted flight.
- During its 72nd flight, Ingenuity encountered the same navigation issues, resulting in a fatal crash, captured by Perseverance, with broken blades and an ending to the mission.
- The investigation revealed that the crash was not due to a blade strike, as there was no expected ground pattern, but rather a structural failure due to stress concentration from precession torque.
- Ingenuity's blades, made from carbon fiber composite with a foam core, broke due to precession, where forces applied on the blades caused stress at the point where reinforcement tapers off.
- Precession torque, occurring because of opposite directions of the helicopter's two sets of blades, resulted in the blades snapping.
- Despite the crash, the landing gear, avionics, servos, and swash plates remained intact, identifying the rotors as the weak link in Ingenuity's design.
10. 🛠️ The Future of Mars Exploration: Inspired by Ingenuity
- The next generation of Mars helicopter, called Chopper, features reinforced blades to withstand torques from hard landings.
- Chopper has six rotors instead of two, allowing it to carry a scientific payload of its own.
- A new lightweight radio developed can communicate directly to orbit, enabling more independent exploration.
- Chopper can carry up to five kilograms of science payload and fly three kilometers per sol in minutes.
- The Chopper platform aims to explore the entire surface of Mars and operates as a mid-air helicopter delivery platform.
- Unlike Mars rovers, the Chopper requires only a platform to take off from, thanks to its ability to land under its own power.
- The vision includes fleets of aircraft flying across Mars and even airports on the planet.
- Ingenuity, the current Mars helicopter, has demonstrated the feasibility of such technology, inspiring future exploration strategies.
- Ingenuity continues to function as a weather station and captures daily temperature measurements, showcasing its durability and versatility.