NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which crashed on Mars last year, has provided valuable lessons for engineers designing future Martian aircraft. According to Håvard Grip, the first pilot of Ingenuity, the most likely cause of the crash was the helicopter’s inability to determine its orientation and velocity while flying over vast sand drifts.
The rotorcraft suffered structural failure when it made a “hard” sideways landing on a steep slope, causing its rotors to spin at nearly 400 mph and putting excessive stress on the blades. The resulting bending moments led to one rotor breaking off at its root, rendering the helicopter unable to fly.
Despite the severity of the crash, Ingenuity’s remains were surprisingly intact, with its solar array pointing skyward and continuing to transmit Martian weather reports until November last year. These findings will inform the design of future Mars helicopters, such as the six-rotor Mars Chopper concept being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Key takeaways from the Ingenuity mission include:
* The importance of robust sensor systems for determining orientation and velocity in vast, featureless environments.
* The need for robust rotor designs that can withstand extreme stress and bending moments.
* The potential for commercially off-the-shelf technology to thrive in deep space missions.
These lessons will enable NASA engineers to develop more powerful and capable Mars helicopters, paving the way for future exploration of the Red Planet.
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ingenuity-mars-helicopter-lessons-learned