15.04.2023
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Completes 50th Flight
This image of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was taken at “Airfield D” by the Mastcam-Z instrument on the Perseverance rover on June 15, 2021, the 114th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The rotorcraft completed its 50th flight on April 13, 2023.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
The history-making rotorcraft has recently been negotiating some of the most hazardous terrain it’s encountered on the Red Planet.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed its 50th flight on Mars. The first aircraft on another world reached the half-century mark on April 13, traveling over 1,057.09 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds. The helicopter also achieved a new altitude record of 59 feet (18 meters) before alighting near the half-mile-wide (800-meter-wide) “Belva Crater.”
With Flight 50 in the mission logbook, the helicopter team plans to perform another repositioning flight before exploring the “Fall River Pass” region of Jezero Crater.
“Just as the Wright brothers continued their experiments well after that momentous day at Kitty Hawk in 1903, the Ingenuity team continues to pursue and learn from the flight operations of the first aircraft on another world,” said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter made history when it achieved the first powered, controlled flight on another planet on April 19, 2021. A little less than two years later, on April 13, 2023, it completed its 50th flight. Here are some highlights from the rotorcraft’s journeys on the Red Planet.
Ingenuity landed on the Red Planet in February 2021 attached to the belly of NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover and will soon mark the two-year anniversary of its first flight, which took place on April 19, 2021. Designed as a technology demonstration that would fly no more than five times, the helicopter was intended to prove powered, controlled flight on another planet was possible. But Ingenuity exceeded expectations and transitioned into being an operations demonstration.
Every time Ingenuity goes airborne, it covers new ground and offers a perspective no previous planetary mission could achieve. Imagery from the helicopter has not only demonstrated how aircraft could serve as forward scouts for future planetary expeditions, but it has even come in handy for the Perseveranceteam.
Teddy Tzanetos at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory provides an update on the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter and discusses how it’s inspiring future aerial exploration of the Red Planet.
By testing the helicopter’s limits, engineers are gathering flight data that can be used by engineers working on designs for possible future Mars helicopters. That includes the people designing the Mars Sample Return campaign’s proposed Sample Recovery Helicopters.
Riskier Terrain
Since leaving the relatively flat confines of Jezero Crater’s floor on Jan. 19, Ingenuity has flown 11 times, setting new speed and altitude records of 14.5 mph (6.5 meters per second) and 59 feet (18 meters) along the way.
Although the deep chill of winter and regional dust events (which can block the Sun’s rays from reaching the helicopter’s solar panel) have abated, Ingenuity continues to brown out at night. As a result, the Helicopter Base Station on the rover needs to search for the rotorcraft’s signal each morning at the time Ingenuity is predicted to wake up. And when the helicopter does fly, it now must navigate rugged and relatively uncharted terrain, landing in spots that can be surrounded by hazards.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is seen here at the starting point of its 47th flight on Mars. The video was captured by the Mastcam-Z imager aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover on March 9, 2023.
“We are not in Martian Kansas anymore,” said Josh Anderson, Ingenuity operations lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We’re flying over the dried-up remnants of an ancient river that is filled with sand dunes, boulders, and rocks, and surrounded by hills that could have us for lunch. And while we recently upgraded the navigation software onboard to help determine safe airfields, every flight is still a white-knuckler.”
Frequent Flyer
Beyond facing more challenging terrain, Ingenuity will also fly at a greater frequency in the coming days because the helicopter needs to remain within electronic earshot of the rover. With its AutoNav capability, Perseverance can travel hundreds of meters each day.
“Ingenuity relies on Perseverance to act as a communications relay between it and mission controllers here at JPL,” said Anderson. “If the rover gets too far ahead or disappears behind a hill, we could lose communications. The rover team has a job to do and a schedule to keep. So it’s imperative Ingenuity keeps up and is in the lead whenever possible.”
Perseverance recently completed exploring “Foel Drygarn,” a scientific target that may contain hydrated silica (which is of strong astrobiological interest). It is currently headed to “Mount Julian,” which will provide a panoramic view into nearby Belva Crater.
Feats of Ingenuity
Built with many off-the-shelf components, such as smartphone processors and cameras, Ingenuity is now 23 Earth months and 45 flights beyond its expected lifetime. The rotorcraft has flown for over 89 minutes and more than 7.1 miles (11.6 kilometers).
“When we first flew, we thought we would be incredibly lucky to eke out five flights,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity team lead at JPL. “We have exceeded our expected cumulative flight time since our technology demonstration wrapped by 1,250% and expected distance flown by 2,214%.”
Surpassing expectations like this comes at a cost, however. With some helicopter components showing signs of wear and the terrain becoming more challenging, the Ingenuity team recognizes that every great mission must eventually come to an end. “We have come so far, and we want to go farther,” said Tzanetos. “But we have known since the very beginning our time at Mars was limited, and every operational day is a blessing. Whether Ingenuity’s mission ends tomorrow, next week, or months from now is something no one can predict at present. What I can predict is that when it does, we’ll have one heck of a party.”
More About Ingenuity
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages the project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System.
At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 23.04.2023
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Perseverance Mars rover snaps amazing shot of dusty Ingenuity helicopter (photo)
It's one of the best photos that Perseverance has taken of Ingenuity on the Red Planet.
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter, photographed by the agency's Perseverance rover on April 16, 2023. The rover captured this enhanced-color image using its Mastcam-Z instrument. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)
NASA's Perseverance rover just snapped an up-close view of its Mars companion Ingenuity, revealing the robotic helicopter's dusty blades.
Perseverance recently traveled within only 75 feet (23 meters) of Ingenuity, which flew to the Red Planet with the big rover. This is the first time in nearly two years that Perseverance has gotten this close to the helicopter, NASA officials wrote on Twitter.
Perseverance snapped some photos of Ingenuity during its close approach on Sunday (April 16), and NASA shared them on Twitter on Tuesday (April 18). The images show the helicopter's rotors coated in Martian dust that was likely kicked up by the helicopter during takeoff, hovering and landing.
Natural-color view of NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter, captured by the agency's Perseverance rover using its Mastcam-Z instrument on April 16, 2023. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)
Despite the dusty coating, "Ingenuity looks to be holding up well in the harsh Martian environment," officials with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which manages the missions of both Ingenuity and Perseverance, wrote in the Tuesday tweet(opens in new tab).
Ingenuity is the first machine to achieve powered flight in the skies of an alien world — a lofty accomplishment, given that the thin Mars atmosphere makes it difficult to achieve enough lift. That's why Ingenuity is equipped with enlarged, specially shaped blades that rotate about 10 times faster than what is needed to fly on Earth.
On April 13, the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) helicopter completed its 50th flight on Mars, during which it traveled 1,057 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds and achieved a new altitude record of 59 feet (18 m) above the Red Planet's surface.
The Mars helicopter's first flight took place on April 19, 2021, only two months after it landed in Jezero Crater. The helicopter has far exceeded its originally planned technology demonstration mission of up to five flights.
Ingenuity also serves as a scout for Perseverance, which is searching for evidence of past microbial life and collecting samples for future return to Earth. The helicopter's test of powered flight on another world could aid in future sample return missions and the ongoing search for life on Mars.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 27.04.2023
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Mars helicopter Ingenuity snaps incredible aerial photo of Perseverance rover during 51st flight
The shot shows Perseverance and its mission from a new and dramatic angle.
A photograph of the Perseverance rover and the Martian surface taken by the Ingenuity helicopter on April 22, 2023, during its 51st Red Planet flight. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
With over 50 Mars flights under its belt, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter continues to impress.
During its 51st flight on Saturday (April 22), Ingenuity took a photo of its companion robot, the Perseverance rover, from 40 feet (12 meters) above the Martian surface. In the photo, Perseverance can be seen motionless in the planet's red soil in the background, nearly indistinguishable from the large rocks strewn across the Red Planet landscape.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) shared the image on Twitter(opens in new tab) on Monday (April 24), adding that Ingenuity's 51st flight lasted for just under 137 seconds and saw the small helicopter travel for a total of 617 feet (188 m).
The two robots on the surface of Mars have been taking turns snapping impressive photos of one another. Just last week, Perseverance took a picture of Ingenuity showing an impressive amount of Martian dust built up on the helicopter's rotors.
Ingenuity's most recent hop came just nine days after its 50th flight. The 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) dual-rotor helicopter was originally intended to make just five flights in the thin Martian atmosphere to determine if flight was feasible on the Red Planet.
Since its first flight in April 2021, the plucky helicopter has continued to prove itself capable of repeated takeoffs and landings. "She has blown out of the water any sort of metric of success," Theodore Tzanetos, Ingenuity team lead at JPL, told Space.com in March 2023.
Because of the distance between Mars and Earth, remote piloting is impossible, so Ingenuity flies pre-programmed flight paths.
Ingenuity has become somewhat of a scout for Perseverance, helping identify locations of interest for the rover on its mission to seek out signs of ancient lifeon the Red Planet.
Aside from posing for Ingenuity's aerial photos, Perseverance has been busy collecting soil and rock samples that will one day be returned to Earth via the ambitious Mars Sample Return mission.
That campaign, a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), will likewise send helicopters to Mars to retrieve the samples Perseverance has been stashing away in a sample depot if need be. (The baseline plan is for Perseverance to deliver its sample tubes to a rocket-toting lander itself; the helicopters will do this work if the rover isn't up to the task.)
An ESA-built Earth Return Orbiter will finally send the samples back to Earth for a landing in the Utah desert in 2033, according to current plans.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 2.05.2023
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Ensuring robotic arm safety during abrasions
Mars Perseverance Sol 770 - Right Navigation Camera: NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its onboard Right Navigation Camera (Navcam). The camera is located high on the rover's mast and aids in driving. This image was acquired on April 21, 2023 (Sol 770). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
This past week, the Perseverance rover has driven to a rock outcrop called Echo Creek, situating itself just west of the Belva crater rim peppered with large flagstone rocks suitable for its next task: abrasion.
Although successfully executed countless times over the past two years, abrading and sampling are still non-deterministic activities. Rocks may fracture or reorient during preload application or the high energy drilling operations. Alternatively, the drill stabilizers or the rover itself may slip. Rover planners do their best to select stable rocks, assess slip risks, and evaluate arm motions to maximize success, all without minimizing science return. But Mars may throw a few curveballs, and it falls on the rover to protect itself in real-time.
To ensure its own safety, the robotic arm and drill software has numerous fault protections that are active during motions, of which three types are listed below:
+ Force Torque Sensor (FTS) fault protection: ensures the observed force and moment loads measured from the FTS under the turret are within acceptable hardware safety limits.
+ Drill weight-on-bit (WOB) fault protection: ensures the axial force on the bit is within acceptable range. WOB in conjunction with FTS loads helps determine the load through the stabilizers versus the bit.
+ Nadir fault protection: ensures the rover tilt does not change by a preset magnitude during arm operations
These fault protection limits include multiple settings as well - such as the averaging period - all of which were determined through analysis and testing. If faults are triggered by a dynamic event, such as a rock fracture or stabilizer slip, an error flag is set within software to discontinue further motions that may exacerbate the situation and risk hardware safety.
Once faults are observed, the operations team may inspect data the following day to determine the root cause and path forward. While these faults can appear to be a misfortune, they still provide extremely useful insight into terrain properties, and add to the repertoire of knowledge to better predict and react to these events.
Quelle: SD
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Update: 13.05.2023
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Images From NASA’s Perseverance May Show Record of Wild Martian River
Scientists think that these bands of rocks may have been formed by a very fast, deep river – the first of its kind evidence has been found for on Mars. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this scene at a location nicknamed “Skrinkle Haven” using its Mastcam-Z camera between Feb. 28 and March 9, 2023.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Evidence left in rocks is leading scientists to rethink what watery environments looked like on ancient Mars.
New images taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover may show signs of what was once a rollicking river on Mars, one that was deeper and faster-moving than scientists have ever seen evidence for in the past. The river was part of a network of waterways that flowed into Jezero Crater, the area the rover has been exploring since landing more than two years ago.
Understanding these watery environments could help scientists in their efforts to seek out signs of ancient microbial life that may have been preserved in Martian rock.
Perseverance is exploring the top of a fan-shaped pile of sedimentary rock that stands 820 feet (250 meters) tall and features curving layers suggestive of flowing water. One question scientists want to answer is whether that water flowed in relatively shallow streams – closer to what NASA’s Curiosity rover has found evidence of in Gale Crater – or a more powerful river system.
Stitched together from hundreds of images captured by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z instrument, two new mosaics suggest the latter, revealing important clues: coarse sediment grains and cobbles.
“Those indicate a high-energy river that’s truckin’ and carrying a lot of debris. The more powerful the flow of water, the more easily it’s able to move larger pieces of material,” said Libby Ives, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which operates the Perseverance rover. With a background in studying Earth-based rivers, Ives has spent the last six months analyzing images of the Red Planet’s surface. “It’s been a delight to look at rocks on another planet and see processes that are so familiar,” Ives said.
Following the Curves
Years ago, scientists noticed a series of curving bands of layered rock within Jezero Crater that they dubbed “the curvilinear unit.” They could see these layers from space but are finally able to see them up close, thanks to Perseverance.
One location within the curvilinear unit, nicknamed “Skrinkle Haven,” is captured in one of the new Mastcam-Z mosaics. Scientists are sure the curved layers here were formed by powerfully flowing water, but Mastcam-Z’s detailed shots have left them debating what kind: a river such as the Mississippi, which winds snakelike across the landscape, or a braided river like Nebraska’s Platte, which forms small islands of sediment called sandbars.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this mosaic of a hill nicknamed “Pinestand.” Scientists think the tall sedimentary layers stacked on top of one another here could have been formed by a deep, fast-moving river.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
When viewed from the ground, the curved layers appear arranged in rows that ripple out across the landscape. They could be the remnants of a river’s banks that shifted over time – or the remnants of sandbars that formed in the river. The layers were likely much taller in the past. Scientists suspect that after these piles of sediment turned to rock, they were sandblasted by wind over the eons and carved down to their present size.
“The wind has acted like a scalpel that has cut the tops off these deposits,” said Michael Lamb of Caltech, a river specialist and Perseverance science team collaborator. “We do see deposits like this on Earth, but they’re never as well exposed as they are here on Mars. Earth is covered in vegetation that hides these layers.”
A second mosaic captured by Perseverance shows a separate location that is part of the curvilinear unit and about a quarter mile (450 meters) from Skrinkle Haven. “Pinestand” is an isolated hill bearing sedimentary layers that curve skyward, some as high as 66 feet (20 meters). Scientists think these tall layers may also have been formed by a powerful river, although they’re exploring other explanations, as well.
"These layers are anomalously tall for rivers on Earth,” Ives said. “But at the same time, the most common way to create these kinds of landforms would be a river.”
The team is continuing to study Mastcam-Z’s images for additional clues. They’re also peering below the surface, using the ground-penetrating radar instrument on Perseverance called RIMFAX(short for Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment). What they learn from both instruments will contribute to an ever-expanding body of knowledge about Mars’ ancient, watery past.
“What’s exciting here is we’ve entered a new phase of Jezero’s history. And it’s the first time we’re seeing environments like this on Mars,” said Perseverance’s deputy project scientist, Katie Stack Morgan of JPL. “We’re thinking about rivers on a different scale than we have before.”
More About the Mission
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 20.05.2023
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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Captures View of Mars’ Belva Crater
The six-wheeled scientist encountered the crater during its latest science campaign in search of rock samples that could be brought to Earth for deeper investigation.
The 152 images that make up this mosaic of Belva Crater were taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on April 22, 2023, the 772nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Belva is a 0.6-mile-wide (0.9-kilometer wide) impact crater within the much larger Jezero Crater.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
The Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover recently collected 152 images while looking deep into Belva Crater, a large impact crater within the far larger Jezero Crater. Stitched into a dramatic mosaic, the results are not only eye-catching, but also provide the rover’s science team some deep insights into the interior of Jezero.
“Mars rover missions usually end up exploring bedrock in small, flat exposures in the immediate workspace of the rover,” said Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist of Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “That’s why our science team was so keen to image and study Belva. Impact craters can offer grand views and vertical cuts that provide important clues to the origin of these rocks with a perspective and at a scale that we don’t usually experience.”
This anaglyph of Perseverance’s mosaic of Belva Crater can best be viewed with red-blue 3D glasses.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
On Earth, geology professors often take their students to visit highway “roadcuts” –places where construction crews have sliced vertically into the rock to make way for roads – that allow them to view rock layers and other geological features not visible at the surface. On Mars, impact craters like Belva can provide a type of natural roadcut.
Signs of Past Water
Perseverance took the images of the basin on April 22 (the 772nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission) while parked just west of Belva Crater’s rim on a light-toned rocky outcrop the mission’s science team calls “Echo Creek.” Created by a meteorite impact eons ago, the approximately 0.6-mile-wide (0.9-kilometer-wide) crater reveals multiple locations of exposed bedrock as well as a region where sedimentary layers angle steeply downward.
These “dipping beds” could indicate the presence of a large Martian sandbar, made of sediment, that billions of years ago was deposited by a river channel flowing into the lake that Jezero Crater once held.
The science team suspects the large boulders in the foreground are either chunks of bedrock exposed by the meteorite impact or that they may have been transported into the crater by the river system. The scientists will search for answers by continuing to compare features found in bedrock near the rover to the larger-scale rock layers visible in the distant crater walls.
To help with those efforts, the mission also created an anaglyph, or 3D version, of the mosaic. “An anaglyph can help us visualize the geologic relationships between the crater wall outcrops,” said Stack. “But it also provides an opportunity to simply enjoy an awesome view. When I look at this mosaic through red-blue 3D glasses, I’m transported to the western rim of Belva, and I wonder what future astronauts would be thinking if they were to stand where Perseverance once stood when it took this shot.”
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 29.06.2023
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Mars donut! Perseverance rover spots holey Red Planet rock (photo)
It might be a large meteorite.
NASA's Mars rover Perserverance snapped this photo of a possible meteorite on the Red Planet on June 23, 2023. (Image credit: Future)
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has rolled up on a rocky donut that may have fallen from the sky.
On Friday (June 23), Perseverance snapped a photo of a big, dark stone with a hole in its center. The intriguing rock is surrounded by others of a similar hue, suggesting a common origin — one that may extend beyond Mars.
The donut rock "could be a large meteorite alongside smaller pieces," representatives of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California said via Twitter on Monday (June 26).
Such a find would not be unprecedented. Perseverance spotted a potential meteorite just a few weeks after its February 2021 touchdown, for example.
And the rover's older cousin, Curiosity, has discovered a number of space rocks on Mars since touching down in August 2012, including a metallic one nicknamed Cacao in February of this year.
Perseverance's discovery isn't the first pastry-like rock that a Mars robot has rolled up on, by the way. In January 2014, NASA's Opportunity rover spied a stone that's white on the outside and red on the inside, prompting mission team members to compare it to a jelly donut.
Perseverance is exploring a 28-wide-mide (45 kilometers) Mars crater called Jezero, which hosted a big lake and a river delta billions of years ago. The car-sized rover is characterizing that ancient environment, searching for signs of long-ago life and collecting dozens of samples for future return to Earth.
A tiny helicopter called Ingenuity is aiding the big rover's work. Ingenuity rode to Mars with Perseverance and quickly aced its five-flight demonstration mission, which showed that aerial exploration is possible on the Red Planet.
The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper is now deep into an extended mission, scouting out routes and promising science targets for its robotic partner to study. Ingenuity has performed 51 flights on Mars to date, covering a total of 7.3 miles (11.7 kilometers) of Red Planet ground.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 30.06.2023
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Mars rover Perseverance sets new record for making oxygen on Red Planet
MOXIE is the first experiment to suck in the planet's thin, carbon dioxide-laden air and transform that native resource into oxygen.
GOLDEN, Colorado - Breathe easy: There's good news from Mars.
Tucked inside NASA's Perseverance Mars rover is a device known as MOXIE, short for Mars Oxygen In Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. MOXIE is the first experiment to suck in the planet's thin, carbon dioxide-laden air and transform that native resource into oxygen. The toaster-sized device, if built to a larger scale, can be used not just for astronaut expeditions to Mars for breathing, but also for rocket fuel.
Earlier this month, the experiment achieved a major milestone when researchers pushed MOXIE to a maximum production level — a factor of two higher than reached earlier.
Riskiest run
"We got great results," said Michael Hecht, MOXIE's principal investigator and an associate director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts.
"This was the riskiest run we've done," Hecht told Space.com in an exclusive interview. "This could have gone wrong," he said, and could have led to minor damage to the instrument, but it didn't. The milestone setting Mars run took place on June 6, operating during the Martian night, and lasted 58 minutes, Hecht said.
The requirements for MOXIE were to produce 6 grams of oxygen an hour, a rate that was eventually doubled. "We rolled the dice a little bit. It was 'hold your breath and see what happens,'" Hecht said.
Informally dubbed by Hecht and his team as "the last hurrah," MOXIE delivered the goods on its 15th run on Mars since first gulping up Martian atmospherewithin Jezero Crater on April 20, 2021.
The challenge all along, Hecht added, has been to define ways to operate on Mars more efficiently by cranking out a higher yield of oxygen.
Voltage vigilance
Hecht presented a review of MOXIE, detailing a Martian year of on-the-spot resource utilization on the Red Planet at the 23rd meeting of the Space Resources Roundtable, held June 6-9 at the Colorado School of Mines.
MOXIE weighs roughly 40 pounds (18 kg) and is designed to pull in Martian air using a pump before using an electrochemical process to separate one oxygen atom from each molecule of carbon dioxide. As a byproduct, carbon monoxide is produced, as is a black residue of solid carbon that can gum up the works inside the device, Hecht said. So voltage vigilance is required as MOXIE performs its high-temperature, oxygen-making work, he added.
Operating one hour at a time, MOXIE ran seven times in calendar year 2021, mostly to prove that the instrument can operate in the different conditions the planet experiences throughout the Martian year. (A year on Mars lasts twice as long as it does on Earth due to the Red Planet's full-circle swing around the sun.)
In 2022, MOXIE technologists focused more on pushing the unit's capabilities, as well as developing new operating modes. All in all, the earlier start-stop set of 14 runs added up to 1,000 minutes of operating time. "It's been an exciting ride," Hecht told the Colorado School of Mines audience.
But MOXIE is a technology demonstration, and like many other demonstrators, its long-term life is tied to funding. Research money for MOXIE is set to end at year's end, Hecht said, with the MIT lab that carries out the work on the lookout for new collaborations.
Full-scale system
As for what's next for MOXIE, Hecht said the experiment results encourage the development of a full-scale system here on Earth, one that pumps out oxygen continuously in auto-mode and is able to generate 25 to 30 tons of oxygen to support a human mission on Mars. "It's all about lifetime. We run an hour at a time. To do this in the future we will have to run for 10,000 hours."
Understanding just how far MOXIE can be pushed before it degrades is important. "On Mars you don't get a second chance," Hecht told Space.com. "We could turn it on at 12 grams an hour and let it rip for a long time."
Perhaps there is value in coming back in a year, Hecht observed, to turn the experiment on again to see if anything has degraded just from aging and exposure to the Martian environment.
"MOXIE isn't going anywhere being nice and safe on Mars," Hecht said.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 3.07.2023
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The first aircraft capable of flight on Mars finally makes contact with NASA after 2 months of radio silence
The Ingenuity Mars helicopter first launched in July 2020.NASA/JPL-Caltech
- NASA lost contact with Ingenuity on April 26 and did not hear from the helicopter for 63 days.
- The helicopter had landed out of range from the Perseverance rover, which allows it to talk to Earth.
- NASA now says the helicopter's 52nd flight was a success after it finally made contact.
After a nail-biting 63 days of silence, the Ingenuity Mars helicopter — the first-ever machine capable of powered and controlled flight on another planet — has finally made contact with mission control, NASA reports.
The signal means Ingenuity's 52nd flight on the red planet was a success.
Ingenuity first launched alongside the Perseverance Mars rover in July 2020. The duo landed on the red planet on Feb. 18, 2021 for the first time. The two are still bonded on the planet, with Ingenuity relying on the Perseverance rover for operations and allowing it to communicate with Earth.
Ingenuity's most recent flight — just over two minutes long — was designed to reposition the helicopter so it could take new images of Mars' surface for researchers. NASA said Ingenuity's signal cut out on April 26 thanks to a hill that separated the helicopter from the Perseverance rover. On June 28, the rover finally made it over the hill, giving the helicopter the signal it needed to contact NASA mission control.
Experts at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, predicted the hill would cause an interruption. This is not Ingenuity's first run-in with communication issues.
Back in April, mission control unexpectedly lost touch with Ingenuity for six days, unable to find any signs of activity. It was the team's first time experiencing a total communication blackout with the helicopter, prompting unease before its return, space.com reported. But the next day, the helicopter successfully completed its 50th flight on the red planet.
Quelle: Business Insider