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Old 06-24-2020, 06:03 AM
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Arrow Nasa's next mission to Mars: This time there's a helicopter

Nasa's next mission to Mars: This time there's a helicopter
By: Michael Daly - Stuff News - 06-24-20
Re: https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/1219...s-a-helicopter

1st. Video link: On site only: https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/1219...s-a-helicopter
Nasa's Ingenuity helicopter is traveling to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover and must safely detach to begin the first attempt at powered flight on another planet.

2nd. Photo link: https://resources.stuff.co.nz/conten...2988881802.jpg
A flight model of Nasa's Ingenuity Mars helicopter.

Nasa's next Mars mission is due to launch sometime in the next four to seven weeks and, along with the mission rover, it's carrying a small helicopter designed to make the first experimental flight test on another planet.

If Nasa misses the launch period between July 20 and August 11, it will have to wait another 26 months - until Earth and Mars are in the right positions again - for the next launch opportunity.

The rover, called Perseverance, being sent to Mars is based on the design of the previous Curiosity rover, but Nasa said it was more sophisticated and larger and heavier.

A small helicopter, called Ingenuity, will be carried in the belly of the Perseverance rover on the 500 million kilometre journey through space.

Removing the 1.8 kilogram helicopter from the rover after it lands on the planet will be a complex undertaking, which Nasa explained in a press release issued on Wednesday.

Touchdown is due on the morning of February 19, 2021 (NZT). In the first two months after Perseverance lands, rover and helicopter teams will be looking for a suitable site for the helicopter. They need a patch 10m x 10m, that is comparatively flat, level and free of obstructions.

Once the site is found, the separation process will start with the rover dropping the shield that had protected the helicopter. Then it will drive into the centre of the flat space.

Assuming everything looks good, the deployment process will start six days later. Essentially, a spring loaded arm will begin rotating the helicopter out of its horizontal position, into a vertical position.

Once the 49 centimetre-high helicopter is fully vertical with its four legs extended, it will be dropped about 13cm to the planet's surface. The rover then drives away and the helicopter's solar panels start recharging the machine's batteries.

The helicopter's team will then have up to 30 Martian days or sols - which are about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day - to perform a series of flight tests.

3rd. Photo link of the landing site: https://resources.stuff.co.nz/conten...2988881802.jpg
Jezero Crater on Mars, is the planned landing site of Nasa's Perseverance rover

The helicopter had to be light to be able to fly in Mars' thin atmosphere, which is only about 1 per cent as thick as that on Earth. It also has to operate autonomously, as Earth is too far away for the helicopter to be operated with a joystick, Nasa said.

The main purpose of the experiment is to help Nasa make decisions about small helicopters for future Mars missions.

While the helicopter test is intriguing, there's much more to the mission.

4th - Photo link: https://resources.stuff.co.nz/conten...2988881802.jpg
NASA/JPL-CALTECH
An artist's concept of the sky crane manoeuvre that put the Curiosity rover on Mars. Perseverance will use the same technique, with some enhancements.

Roughly the dimensions of a small car, the 1025kg Perseverance rover will be placed on the Martian surface using the same sky crane landing system as used by the Curiosity mission in 2012.

It involves the rover being lowered to the planet's surface on a tether connected to the descent stage of the spacecraft that carried it on the journey through space.

Perseverance will have some new technology to help it land closer to its prime target than was possible with previous rovers.

5th. Photo link: https://resources.stuff.co.nz/conten...2988881802.jpg
NASA/JPL-CALTECH - An artist's concept of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.

That includes technology to better judge when to pull the trigger that releases the parachute of the spacecraft as it heads toward the Martian surface, and a system that enables the rover to change direction while in the air to avoid dangerous ground.

Perseverance has more cameras to film its descent than Curiosity did, and also has a microphone. The cameras and microphone "are likely to give people on Earth a good and dramatic sense of the ride down to the surface", Nasa said.

Perseverance's landing site is in the 45km-wide Jezero Crater, which is just north of the Martian equator and is thought to have possibly been an oasis in the distant past.

The primary goal of the mission is to look for signs of ancient life, and Nasa said the landing site had "high potential for finding signs of past microbial life".

6th photo link: https://resources.stuff.co.nz/conten...2988881802.jpg
The Mars helicopter can be seen in this picture attached underneath the Perseverance rover.

A river flowed into a lake near the landing site 3-4 billion years ago. It's thought preserved organic molecules and other potential signs of microbial life could have collected and been preserved in the river's delta.

Perseverance has a drill that can cut intact rock cores, about the size of pieces of chalk, that will be stored and then left at a place where they could possibly be picked up. Nasa and the European Space Agency are planning a mission to pick up the samples and return them to Earth to be analysed.

Upgraded sensors, computers and algorithms mean the rover won't have to wait for engineers on Earth to send it instructions, so it will be able to cross more ground in a day than its predecessors.

Its instrument suite will provide information about the weather and climate and the nature of the dust on the surface.

There's also a proof-of-concept experiment to produce oxygen from Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere, demonstrating how it might be possible in future to produce oxygen for fuel propellant and for breathing.

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Let's hope all goes well!

Boats
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