Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Artist’s concept of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flying through the Red Planet’s skies. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Has something happened to NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter?

The Internet’s Mars Guy looks into recent challenges communicating with Ingenuity. But why the mini-chopper hasn’t flown in more than a month. Is it a communication issue or something worse?

For that Mars Guy episode, go to: https://youtu.be/gQ3TrmOe_sw

Long range plan

In response to these questions, Mars Guy received a recent communiqué from space engineer Bob Balaram — a person with knowledge regarding the Mars helicopter effort. He offered these insights:

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is busy at work, on a roll to find evidence of past microbial life on the Red Planet. This rover’s selfie also captures Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“Priority is to keep Ingenuity ahead of Perseverance. Flying deliberately into radio shadowed regions is therefore considered acceptable to Ingenuity’s operations team. Eventually the rover will complete its current science activities and, as part of its long range plan, move to locations favorable for communication,” Balaram said.

Distance, intervening terrain

Ingenuity’s automated landing site algorithm typically deflects the planned landing location by only a few meters, Balaram added, “so that does not significantly change the overall communication situation. A major factor is that the Ingenuity base station antenna is not in the most favorable location on the rover. As the helicopter was a late addition, that was the best that could be had.”

Balaram concludes by noting: “The metallic clutter on the rover then becomes a big factor at this location and makes the radio signal strength highly dependent on rover heading, which in turn varies a lot depending on the science operations underway. Distance and intervening terrain also reduce signal strength. The helicopter flight planning process uses a sophisticated radio propagation model that gives a very good estimate of the expected signal strength at any planned landing site for a given rover location and heading. This is used in conjunction with airfield selection tools, navigation performance models to estimate flight path delivery errors, and consultation with rover planners to plan each flight.”