On April 7, the restraints that have been holding the rotor blades together since before launch are scheduled to be released. If the mission team meets that milestone, the next several sols will involve more testing of the rotor blades as well as the motors that drive them. There are also checkouts of the inertial measurement unit (an electronic device that measures a body’s orientation and angular rate) and onboard computers tasked with autonomously flying the helicopter. Additionally, the team will continue to monitor the helicopter’s energy performance, including assessment of solar-array power and state of charge of the craft’s six lithium ion batteries.
If all goes well with each of the myriad preflight checks, Ingenuity’s first attempt to lift off from the middle of its 33-by-33-foot (10-by-10-meter) “airfield” – chosen for its flatness and lack of obstructions – will be no sooner than the evening of April 11.
Subsequent flight tests will be scheduled throughout the Month of Ingenuity, with Perseverance’s cameras providing plenty of high-definition images of the historic mission.
More About Ingenuity
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages this technology demonstration project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. NASA’s Ames Research Center and Langley Research Center provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance.
At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. At JPL, MiMi Aung is the project manager and J. (Bob) Balaram is chief engineer.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.
For more information about Ingenuity:
https://go.nasa.gov/ingenuity-press-kit
and
https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter
More About Perseverance
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.
JPL built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
nasa.gov/perseverance
and
mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/