The harsh Martian winter makes it impossible for the Ingenuity helicopter to fully charge its battery, and NASA engineers are looking for ways to keep the vehicle afloat.
Ingenuity has been very active with 28 flights since arriving on Mars. Image: NASA
For the first time, the mission control team on Earth lost contact with the Ingenuity helicopter on days 427 and 428 on Mars, May 3 and May 4, respectively. It took engineers a week to figure out what was causing the problem. They discovered that the loss of communication occurred because Ingenuity could not fully charge the battery at night. The voltage drop causes the clock to restart, resulting in the helicopter’s system losing sync with its companion robot, Perseverance. While Ingenuity has now returned to transmitting data back to Earth via Perseverance, the mission team predicts the problem could recur due to early winters on Mars.
Winter on the red planet will last until September or October. During the winter, dust floats in the air, obscuring the light needed to charge Ingenuity’s solar cells. To date, Ingenuity has flown 6.8 km in 28 different flights. The helicopter is still in good working order and has been restored to service despite some minor adjustments. Engineers believe Ingenuity will soon take off for the 29th time.
“Challenges of this kind are to be expected. After hundreds of Mars days and dozens of flights after the original five, the solar-powered helicopter is in unfamiliar terrain,” said Teddy Tzanetos. , team leader Ingenuity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “We’re operating beyond design limits. Historically, Mars has been very harsh for spacecraft. Every Mars day could be Ingenuity’s last day.”
With a Martian winter, Ingenuity will experience more airborne dust and a drop in temperature. Both conditions affect the helicopter’s ability to charge, keep warm and operate. As a result, Ingenuity will not be able to maintain the battery pack and electronics at the programmed temperature threshold of -25 degrees Celsius using the heater.
Instead, the vehicle will experience nighttime temperatures of -80 degrees Celsius, which can threaten any electronic components. So far, Ingenuity’s electronics are stable and haven’t been damaged on cold nights. Every morning when the helicopter warms up and charges, the power outage from the night before will throw the clocks off.
Now, Perseverance must communicate with Ingenuity in a more creative way. Basically, the robot needs to accept that the helicopter is “sleeping” and awake at the wrong time due to a clock issue. Using the Helicopter Base Station, Perseverance was able to communicate with Ingenuity each day and reprogram the watch for that day.
The team in charge couldn’t predict how Ingenuity’s core modules would perform over the winter, but cold-soaked electronics are believed to have caused the end of the Opportunity and Spirit Mars missions. Currently, Ingenuity works until sunset with a battery pack of 68% full. The helicopter needs a battery at least 70% full to keep the heater, clock and core electronics running overnight, JPL engineers estimate. The 2% deficit will increase to 7% by the winter solstice (the 500th day on Mars), Tzanetos said.
Recovering data from Ingenuity, including flight logs and color photos from eight previous flights, became a top priority. Next, the team in charge will determine if the helicopter is ready for the new flight and proceed to rotate the rotor at high speed. If Ingenuity could make a short flight southwest, it would be in a good position to communicate with Perseverance while the rover researches and collects samples from the ancient river delta. The flight software team is also working to upgrade Ingenuity’s navigation capabilities, allowing the helicopter to fly over the river delta and continue to provide Perseverance aerial navigation.
An Khang (Follow CNN)
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