The Real Reason NASA Developed The Ingenuity Rover!

this is a real photograph of a helicopter on the planet Mars it was built by humans on Earth and became the first machine to fly using aerodynamic lift on an alien planet NASA Engineers have spent the past three decades working on interplanetary exploration technology going from a very small Mars Rover up to a very large Mars Rover and back down again to the miniature Martian helicopter we are looking at the first steps on a journey that will unlock the secrets of the universe this is how NASA reinvented their Mars Rover before we can really talk about wings on Mars we need to establish our foundation on Wheels our upclose examination of Mars dates back to the mid 1970s and the Viking Landers these were essentially scientific instrument clusters that made an Epic Journey all the way down to the surface of the red planet and delivered firsthand information about the composition of Martian soil NASA launched both Viking 1 and Viking 2 in the summer of 1976 to take the most advantage of a close proximity window between Earth and Mars that only opens once every 26 months by placing two Landers in different areas of the planet NASA was getting the most diverse sample range possible but these were still just two scoop of sand in a planet-sized desert the odds of finding an ancient fossilized Martian bacteria using this method were not in our favor so Mars Landings were put on hold for two decades as NASA worked on developing their solution for exploring the great unknown in December 1996 NASA was ready to send a new payload to Mars the Pathfinder again this was a scientific instrument station that unfurled itself on the Martian surface to reveal a collection of Scopes cameras and meters but Pathfinder also brought along with it a small prototype vehicle this little guy Sojourner anyone who is around in the late '90s remembers the original Mars Rover this thing was a pop culture icon it was incredible we were driving around a remote controlled car on another planet the 21st century had arrived Sojourner was a technology demonstration no one really knew what was going to happen when you started to drive around a tiny car millions of miles away on the surface of an alien planet but there was only one way to find out the first Mars Rover was about the size and weight of a microwave oven it had six wheels each with their own Independent Electric Motor and an experimental new suspension system that was called The Rocker bogy we know that the surface of Mars is not smooth and Sandy like a desert it's littered with small chunks of jagged Rock and the last thing NASA wanted was for their new Rover to travel millions of miles through space just to get hung up on a Rock before it could do any science with this high-tech suspension system the Rover could safely overcome obstacles up to 1/3 of its own size in this iconic photo taken by the Pathfinder Landers camera we can see the rover conducting an upclose examination of a large Boulder because this Rover was in such an early phase of development it didn't carry a whole lot of scientific equipment that was still mostly handled by the Lander platform but Sojourner was equipped with a front-facing instrument called an alpha proton x-ray spectrometer and that allowed it to determine the chemical composition of any rock that it could drive up to the Rover was even equipped with an early form of autonomous driving not so different from what we see in modern vehicles it used a combination of camera vision and lasers to identify obstacles and maneuver around the Martian landscape because the NASA team on Earth could only communicate with the Rover once per day they would essentially have to set a waypoint location that the Rover would drive towards and then tune in the next day to see where it ended up so it was a pretty slow process of Exploration with the Rover covering about 100 m of driving in its 3 months of operation that doesn't sound like much but it was significantly more performance than NASA scientists had hoped for and it gave the space agency enough confidence to double down on the Mars rover in a very big way if one little Mars rover was able to Captivate the world and write new chapters in planetary science then just imagine what two big Mars rovers might accomplish this was NASA's plan with the Mars exploration Rover spirit and opportunity both machines were launched on separate Delta 2 rockets in the summer of 2003 taking full advantage of that fleeting Mars transfer window this time instead of a Lander that deployed a separate Rover the Lander was the rover after shedding its protective Landing shell each explor ation Rover unfurled solar panels scientific instruments and wheels then set off into the Martian desert it's very difficult to get a sense for how big these machines actually are because we have no known reference points on Mars so where the Sojourner Rover was about the size of a microwave spirit and opportunity were closer to the size of golf carts NASA had essentially just scaled up the six-wheel drive rocker bogey system to create these next generation Rovers the extra size and capability allowed the full collection of Scientific instruments from the Lander to now be fully mobile for the first time in the top of a 1.5 M tall Mast each Rover had nine digital cameras they were used for both navigation and to create three-dimensional panoramic images of the Martian landscape the exploration Rover also had its main spectrometer placed on the end of a robotic arm that extended out from the front for for closer examination of rocks and soil with all of these upgrades over their predecessor the twin Rovers were able to accomplish orders of magnitude more exploration and data collection than any previous Mars mission the spirit rover had a lifespan of 6 years and drove 4.8 mil while the opportunity exceeded all expectations to last over 14 years and cover 28 miles of the alien landscape this is the next generation of Mars Rover you're looking at a self-portrait taken by a robot on the surface of the planet Mars in the year 2012 this Rover named curiosity became the first of a new breed of vehicle to roam the Martian surface again we have to establish a sense of scale here because this machine is a lot bigger than most people realize so here's our microwave sized Sojourner and here is our golf cart sized opportunity and now we bring in curiosity this is around the size of a crossover SUV it's really big you'll notice we have the same six-wheel Drive powertrain and a much bigger and beefier version of the same rocker bogey suspension system at this scale you can really see how the wheels are linked to the main body of the Rover it's now a tried and tested method for traversing the jagged Rocky surface you'll also notice that unlike its predecessors curiosity does not have solar panels instead the Rover is powered by a radioisotope thermo El generator heat generated by the radioactive decay of a plutonium isotope is converted into electricity by thermocouples and any excess heat not turned into electricity is used to keep the systems warm during the Martian night with 11 lbs of plutonium 238 on board curiosity's generator has a minimum lifespan of 14 years and the Rover is still going strong to this day in 2021 curiosity was joined on Mars by its own twin Rover perseverance part of the Mars 2020 Mission perseverance is mostly the same car-sized platform as its older sibling just with an upgraded collection of Scientific instruments and recording tools it carries seven primary payload instruments 19 cameras and two microphones it was the first time that audio recording equipment had been sent to Mars and that's how we know that the wind on the red planet sounds like this we can also hear the sound of the Rover itself as the hollow metal wheels clang over the Martian rocks the gentle worring of the electric motors and the squeaking of the suspension system and thanks to a very special payload delivered by perseverance we have [Music] this you are hearing the sound of a helicopter flying on Mars for the first time and this is the view from 80 ft above the Martian surface my favorite thing about space exploration is that there is always something new to learn we are constantly in search of better ways to understand how the universe works how Science and Technology are shaping our future so that we can get on here and share new ideas with all of you this is why I've become such a fan of today's sponsor brilliant brilliant is the best way to learn math data science and computer science interactively more specifically though brilliant is a fun and Interactive online platform that is easy to use this is a free and intuitive way to learn about space through problem solving and puzzles I've been learning all about supernovas recently and these really fun animations make it easy to visualize and understand the Fallout from an exploding star they even have an animated guide to terraforming Mars to try everything brilliant has to offer free for a full 30 days visit brilliant.org thepac race or click on the link in the description the first 200 of you will get 20% off brilliant's annual premium subscription just like the Pathfinder back in 1996 Mars 2020 brought along one small piece of experimental technology a helicopter drone named Ingenuity hitched a ride in the belly of the Rover and was deployed on April 3rd 2021 we've seen NASA make some pretty amazing progress with their Rover vehicles over the 25-year period that we just covered but there is still only so much that can be accomplished on Wheels this is rugged and uneven terrain inevitably you will reach a hill that is too steep to climb if we want to take interplanetary exploration to the next level we have to learn how to fly in many ways Ingenuity was NASA's biggest risk yet when it comes to Tech demonstrations on Mars because we knew without any doubt that Wheels would work on Mars just as well as they do on the Earth but propellers are a whole other story this is a DJI Phantom drone you've probably seen one before maybe even own one yourself it's not so different from NASA's Mars drone the frame is a comparable size to Ingenuity the DJI is a bit smaller overall and about one PB lighter using four tiny propellers the Phantom can rise thousands of feet into the air while Ingenuity uses two relatively giant propellers with a 4ft wingspan and with this it achieves a maximum height of around 80 ft Ingenuity needs much larger flight Hardware to accomplish much less performance because it is flying in an environment with less than 1% the atmospheric density of the Earth at sea level to find an equivalent air density on Earth you would need to go to an altitude of 87,000 Ft the highest anyone has ever flown a helicopter is just over 40,000 ft in order to test the helicopter opter flight system on Earth NASA had to use a vacuum chamber that simulated the lowdensity atmosphere of Mars they also had to use a cable system that would pull up on the helicopter at just the right tension to simulate the reduced gravity effect as well they even had fans blowing air across the chamber to try and simulate wind on Mars due to all of these factors the propeller system on Ingenuity is very unique each blade is shaped for maximum lift they are constructed from am Ultra lightweight foam with a carbon fiber reinforced shell to achieve lift on Mars the blades need to spin at Double the RPM that would be required on Earth the two propellers are counter rotating to keep the Drone stable in Flight a traditional helicopter uses a tail rotor to do the same job and a quadcopter drone uses two sets of counter rotating propellers on opposing Corners because of the small size and high energy requirements in Ingenuity is limited to a maximum of 90 seconds flying time before it has to stop and recharge the internal systems of Ingenuity have a lot in common with a modern smartphone it uses two Sony cameras half a dozen Sony lithium ion battery cells a cell phone grade inertial measurement unit and a Garmin altimeter the batteries are charged by a solar panel mounted to the top of the Drone with all of the technology built into Ingenuity there was still doubt that a helicopter would be able to perform on Mars even within NASA there was opposition to the project and some top officials thought it was a waste of resources to ship the Drone along with perseverance but just like the Sojourner Rover before it the first Mars helicopter has far exceeded expectations for its performance and Longevity the initial technical demonstration had only planned for five flights on Mars 2 and 1/2 years later Ingenuity has completed 67 flights with a total of over 2 hours flying time the helicopter is currently being used as a scouting vehicle to help plan out the Journey of the perseverance Rover as it navigates the Steep river deltas of the jezero crater the initial success has already begun to fuel New Concept ideas at Nasa the Mars science helicopter is a six propeller drone with a mass of around 30 kg the much larger hexacopter would be able to fly up to 10 km in one mission and carry up to 5 kg of scientific payloads along for the flight if we remember the spirit rover covered just under 8 km in its entire 6-year lifespan so to fly further in one day with the Mars signs helicopter would be a gigantic Leap Forward in our exploration of the red planet we know that NASA is also envisioning a pair of Ingenuity like helicopters for their Mars sample return mission in 2030 as the perseverance Rover explores the jezero crater it has been collecting samples from underneath the surface regolith and leaving them behind in sealed tubes the idea is that eventually NASA will follow up to collect the sample tubes and return them to the Earth for study the original idea was to use a fetch Rover that would essentially retrace the perseverance journey and collect the tubes but with the unexpected success of their demonstration helicopter NASA is thinking that flying machines will be much faster and more efficient for retrieving the samples and this doesn't end on Mars either dragonfly is a quadcopter drone that will fly on Saturn's moon Titan this is a surreal world where the Frozen surface is covered by flowing rivers and seas of liquid methane so alien that it is almost incomprehensible but the thick nitrogen atmosphere on Titan makes an ideal location to fly a drone in many ways we're lucky that Mars offers such a challenging environment to practice flying so relatively close to home because if we can Master The Art of Flight on Mars then the possibilities will be nearly endless

Channel: The Space Race

Views: 84,597

Keywords: nasa, rover, mars rover, ingenuity rover, ingenuity mars rover, mars helicopter, mars, perserverence rover, spirit rover, evolution of mars rovers, nasa reinvented

Id: y0CeJX1efqM

Length: 16min 12sec (972 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 07 2024