From NASA Wit helicopter you will attempt to fly to the red planet in the early hours of Monday morning and you will be able to see live how the NASA team tracks this historic test from the control of the mission.
If the four legs of this tiny 1.8-pound (4-pound) helicopter come off the Martian surface, it will become the first time NASA or any other space agency has achieved a motorized controlled flight on an alien planet. Success would introduce a whole new dimension to the exploration of the red planet.
You can watch the live play below from 3:30 am EDT (12:30 am PDT) on Monday 12 April. NASA has not yet said when the images or video of the flight attempt will be available, but we are waiting later Monday.
Alternatively, you can follow the NASA application, YouTube, i Facebook. For those living in the Western Hemisphere, it’s certainly not the best time to stay awake, but NASA will hold an information session to discuss the preliminary results of the flight at 11:00 am EDT (8:00 am PDT ) of the same day.
It is important to note that the current schedule is subject to change “as engineers work on the deployments, planned checks, and vehicle positioning of both perseverance and ingenuity.” seconds at NASA. Schedule updates can be checked on the helicopter’s Watch Online Web page.
The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory team will also assess the wind speed at the Octavia Butler landing site and the amount of energy available to Ingenuity for its flight, MiMi Aung told reporters Friday , director of the Ingenuity project. Amelia Quon, an engineering test engineer, said the helicopter was tested in a wide range of possible wind conditions, but there was no perfect way to simulate conditions on Mars.
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During Earth tests, a prototype was exposed to winds blowing between 10 and 11 meters per second (33 to 36 feet per second), which should be stronger than expected inside the Jezero crater, according to explain Quon during Friday’s press conference.
The Perseverance rover, after linking with the helicopter, will transmit the results of the flight tests to an orbiter, which in turn will transmit the data to the Earth’s mission controllers. During the press conference, Tim Canham, head of operations at Ingenuity at JPL, said we should wait 40 seconds for data as it is the expected duration of the inaugural test flight.
The device is equipped with a down camera that will take pictures during the flight, Canham said. The team expects to receive grenade black and white images at first, followed by high-resolution images in the coming days. Paste images 30 times per second, the Ingenuity camera, in addition to chronicling the flight, will also serve as a kind of altimeter and help mission planners locate the helicopter’s landing site, he added. .
The Perseverance rover will try to capture images of the Ingenuity test flight, which it will do with its Mastcam-Z camera. Elsa Jensen, head of Mastcam-Z uplink operations, said her team has been practicing the test flight, but warned that the images may not be fantastic, as it has never been attempted. nothing like it and there will be “surprises,” he explained Friday. Interestingly, Canham said Perseverance’s microphones could be used to capture the sounds of in-flight wit during later tests.
The wit unfolded to the surface last weekend and is now standing on all fours. The helicopter had been taken to the bottom of the rover for the march to Mars, but the machine survives on its own, successfully recharging the batteries using the solar panels and communicating with its six-wheeled companion, according to Aung. This week the main milestones were reached, as the four-bladed rotor helicopters were deployed and tested at speeds of 50 rpm and 2,400 rpm.
The two sets of blades are counter-rotating and have been carefully adjusted to maximize the elevation of thin Martian air. Wit rotors aren’t something you “get off the shelf,” Aung said. Each super lightweight blade weighs about 35 grams and consists of a foam core with a carbon fiber cover. The design is designed to ensure rigidity, strength and lightness, he added. During the inaugural flight, the ingenuity rotors will spin at the furious pace of 2,537 rpm. The high rate of rotation has to do with the Martian atmosphere, which is only 1% of the Earth.
Aung said this project would not have been possible 10th Fifteen years ago, such engineers only had the technology to rotate the blades at such high speeds, use the autonomous, fast microcontrols of the rotor blades in flight, and design a vehicle capable of surviving harsh conditions on Mars.
Regardless of what happens during the flight, “we know, whether it’s a success or a failure,” Aung said. He noted the serious possibility that the device would overturn during landing. BBecause the helicopter has no way to straighten up, this development would end the project. The technology demonstration is about “adding the aerial dimension” to NASA’s toolkit for exploring Mars, Aung said. And, as Canham pointed out, the test photos will obviously be nice, but the main goal of the mission is to get the flight data.
In case the flight goes well and ingenuity lands on all fours, NASA will continue to test the helicopter over 30 suns, or Martian days.