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Mars Helicopter: 6 Things to Know About Ingenuity

When our Perseverance Mars rover lands on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021, it will bring along the Ingenuity helicopter.

This small-but-mighty craft is a technology demonstration that will attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. Its fuselage is about the size of a tissue box, and it weighs about 4 pounds (1.8 kg) on Earth. It started out six years ago as an implausible prospect and has now passed its Earthbound tests.

Here are six things to know about Ingenuity as it nears Mars:

1. Ingenuity is an experimental flight test.

This Mars helicopter is known as a technology demonstration, which is a project that aims to test a new capability for the first time with a limited scope. Previous technology demonstrations include Sojourner, the first Mars rover, and the Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeStats that flew by Mars.

Ingenuity does not carry any science instruments and is not part of Perseverance’s science mission. The only objective for this helicopter is an engineering one – to demonstrate rotorcraft flight in the thin and challenging Martian atmosphere.

2. Mars won’t make it easy for Ingenuity.

Mars’ atmosphere is around 1% the density of Earth’s. Because of that lack of density, Ingenuity has rotor blades that are much larger and spin faster than a helicopter of Ingenuity’s mass here on our planet. It also must be extremely light to travel to Mars.

The Red Planet also has incredibly cold temperatures, with nights reaching minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (-90 degrees Celsius) in Jezero Crater, where our rover and helicopter will land. Tests on Earth at the predicted temperatures indicate Ingenuity’s parts should work as designed, but the real test will be on Mars.

3. Ingenuity relies on Perseverance for safe passage to Mars and operations on the Martian surface.

Ingenuity is nestled sideways under Perseverance’s belly with a cover to protect the helicopter from debris during landing. The power system on the Mars 2020 spacecraft periodically charges Ingenuity’s batteries during the journey to the Red Planet.

In the first few months after landing, Perseverance will find a safe place for Ingenuity. Our rover will shed the landing cover, rotate the helicopter so its legs face the ground and gently drop it on the Martian surface.

4. Ingenuity is smart for a small robot.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will not be able to control the helicopter with a joystick due to delays communicating with spacecraft across interplanetary distances. That means Ingenuity will make some of its own decisions based on parameters set by its engineering team on Earth.

During flight, Ingenuity will analyze sensor data and images of the terrain to ensure it stays on a flight path designed by project engineers.

5. The Ingenuity team counts success one step at a time.

Ingenuity’s team has a long list of milestones the helicopter must pass before it can take off and land in the Martian atmosphere.

Surviving the journey to and landing on Mars

Safely deploying onto the Martian surface from Perseverance’s belly

Autonomously keeping warm through those intensely cold Martian nights

Autonomously charging itself with its solar panel

Successfully communicating to and from the helicopter via the Mars Helicopter Base Station on Perseverance

6. If Ingenuity succeeds, future Mars exploration could include an ambitious aerial dimension.

The Mars helicopter intends to demonstrate technologies and first-of-its-kind operations needed for flying on Mars. If successful, these technologies and flight experience on another planet could pave the way for other advanced robotic flying vehicles.

Possible uses of a future helicopter on Mars include:

A unique viewpoint not provided by current orbiters, rovers or landers

High-definition images and reconnaissance for robots or humans

Access to terrain that is difficult for rovers to reach

Could even carry light but vital payloads from one site to another

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

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mlu

2 years ago

A Tumblr Quick Start Guide

A year ago, I realized that every time I logged onto Twitter, I felt my blood pressure rise. It's a platform that runs on anger and outrage, and I wanted someplace better to spend my screen time. In my almost-year on Tumblr, I now realize I log on here and get one or two good laughs every time I check my dashboard.

Tumblr has given me a lot lately, but it is a bit different than other platforms. I'd like to give back a little and provide a quick-start guide on how being new to Tumblr worked for me.

Finding Things to Follow

The biggest thing I had to get used to was realizing that on Tumblr, you don't necessarily follow people or celebrities or politicians. You follow your interests. In fact, it's pretty common to follow only strangers that post things you like. That can make your empty dash daunting to fill! Let's fill it with things you love and make you happy.

Make a list, mental or otherwise, of things you're interested in. Be both broad and specific! Board Games. Magic The Gathering. Supernatural. Marvel. Video Games. 8-Bit. Urban planning. Any and all things that you like!

Pick one of your interests and search for that tag. Flip between "Latest" and "Top" and browse around to see what kind of content is in that tag. You'll notice images, art, gif sets, TikToks, videos, essays - all sorts of things!

If you see a lot of things you like, cool! Click the button to Follow that tag if you want to keep up to date on it and find things later (we'll come back to this).

If you see a post you love, check out who posted or reblogged it. Scroll around on their blog. Do they post similar stuff? Are there other things you like here? Are they posting often? If you like what they post, follow the blog! Congrats, you've followed your first blog!

Take some time and check out some other tags and follow the same process - follow tags you like and blogs you might be interested in. It's not possible to over-follow! You can always curate your list later. This isn't Twitter - no one cares if you unfollow someone. Find what makes you happy.

Go back to your main dashboard - how are things looking? Filled with things you're interested in? Excellent. If things don't work for you, don't be afraid to unfollow blogs.

Want to follow more blogs? New episode of Andor drop? Go to the "Your Tags" header and scroll around to find some more juicy content. Check out blogs you like, follow 'em if you like em, rinse and repeat! That's curating your dash!

Your Blog is Your House

Okay, so you have a dashboard of content that you like - but what do you do with it all? Someone once described a Tumblr blog to me like your little house that you can fill with all the things you like. There is no rhyme or reason, and you don't need an excuse to reblog something other than the fact that you liked it!

If you see something you like, reblog it! To me, I reblog things when I say "I like this and I want it to live in my house so other people can see it when they come visit"

Reblogging is like passing a message along to other people. You can just reblog it on its own to amplify it, or you can add your own tags, or if you have a funny reaction gif/thought/video/thousand-word-essay, add to it when you reblog!

Use tags. People actually find posts through tags here. Use them to help people discover that really cool reblog you found! You can also search for tags on specific blogs. This makes them great for categorizing posts on your own blog. For example, I use #2022 Game Journal when I blog about whatever game I'm playing so I can do a year-end review later and find all the posts later.

Like things too. Likes don't amplify posts, but they're nice to let a poster know you appreciated it! I also use likes a bookmark. Sometimes I don't have time to watch that TikTok, so I'll like it as a reminder to come back to it later.

Be Weird. You can have sideblogs to hold more specific content, but don't be afraid to just scoop up anything you like and put it in your house! Reblogging is how content gets passed around.

Random Blog Tips

Wow nice job, your blog's looking great! Before you know it, someone will find it, check out your posts, and maybe give you a follow if they like what you've made or what your reblog! The last thing I'll touch on here are some nitty-gritty tips that can help you think about all the meta stuff about Tumblr:

Tumblr is the most anonymous social media platform. No one has to know who you are. Take advantage of all the privacy options.

You can also hide likes and who you follow from public view - that's no one else's business! Turn off asks too if you want.

Play around with your settings in general - there are lots of customization options and other dash tabs that you can use to find new content. You can also turn on timestamps so you know if a post you see is a "heritage post," as they say. Content is evergreen here and I personally like to see that in action.

You can filter and hide tags that you don't want to see.

Just block people liberally, it's cool.

You can pay to remove ads (nice), but you can also leave the option to see Blazed posts on. Blazed posts are ones that people pay for impressions for - and any post can be Blazed. The kicker is, there's no ad targeting. It can be quite funny or quite annoying depending on what you want.

When viewing the notes on a post, you'll see comments, reblogs, and likes. For the reblogs section, I like to filter by "Comments only" to find what people have added to the post.

Like all social media sites, there are dark corners here. I think Tumblr more than most puts you in control to curate your Dashboard to only see what you want. Block a user, hide a post, and move on.

That should be quite enough to get started! Tumblr can take a little more time to "get" compared to other social media platforms (and get in on the long-running jokes!), but trust me, after a week, you'll notice the difference between checking your Tumblr dashboard and checking your Twitter timeline.

Your blood pressure will thank you.

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mlu

3 years ago