WASHINGTON — As a Mars helicopter continues to perform a long way previous expectancies, courses from that car are being included into NASA’s evolving Mars Pattern Go back plans.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory introduced Jan. 2 that the Ingenuity Mars helicopter finished its seventieth flight on Dec. 22. The helicopter flew 260 meters all the way through the 133-second flight, and has now traversed about 17 kilometers since its first flight in April 2021.
Ingenuity used to be incorporated at the Mars 2020 venture as a generation demonstrator with the intent of appearing not more than 5 flights. The luck of Ingenuity all the way through the ones flights led NASA to proceed flying the helicopter, turning it right into a scout for the Perseverance rover.
The luck of Ingenuity has additionally affected NASA’s plans for Mars Pattern Go back (MSR). The company, in cooperation with the Eu House Company, introduced in July 2022 that it’s going to come with two helicopters in response to Ingenuity on a long run lander that may take the samples accumulated via Perseverance and release them into orbit. The ones helicopters might be a backup if Perseverance itself isn’t in a position to ship samples to the lander via transporting samples from a floor cache to the lander.
Engineers at JPL are adapting the Ingenuity design for MSR. The teachings from flying Ingenuity are “the bottom reality that we’re the usage of to design the pattern retrieval helicopters for the following venture,” mentioned Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity undertaking supervisor at JPL, all the way through a Dec. 15 tournament on the Nationwide Air and House Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Heart the place NASA donated to the museum a prototype of Ingenuity utilized in flooring assessments.
That flooring reality, he mentioned, comprises advanced modeling of each the aerodynamics of the helicopter and its thermal atmosphere, making sure that the helicopter does now not get too chilly at night time. “It’s very difficult on Mars for this kind of small craft,” he mentioned.
On the identical time, NASA is constant its assessment of the full MSR structure after an unbiased assessment concluded the prevailing plan would now not be in a position on agenda and be way more pricey than prior to now anticipated. It’s unclear what adjustments, if any, that may outcome within the helicopters recently deliberate for MSR.
That effort is making “just right growth,” mentioned Eric Ianson, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, in an interview on the tournament. He mentioned the trouble stays at the agenda introduced within the fall that referred to as for finishing the paintings on a revised structure for MSR in March, however didn’t be offering further information about the continued assessment.
NASA introduced in November that it used to be slowing paintings on MSR now not simply as a result of the structure assessment but additionally as a result of finances issues. A Senate appropriations invoice would offer MSR with not up to a 3rd of its request of just about $950 million, and with the company working on a seamless solution that budget systems at 2023 ranges till early February, NASA sought after to steer clear of a “worst-case situation” of working out of cash if the Senate invoice is in the long run enacted.
Ianson, who may be deputy director of the planetary science department at NASA Headquarters, mentioned the ones finances issues don’t seem to be restricted to MSR. “We’re taking a look in any respect of our missions and we’re being cautious to take a look at what the conservative numbers are inside the Senate language,” he mentioned, “attempting to ensure we don’t get out over our skis.”
Tzanetos mentioned he used to be happy to be operating on every other helicopter so quickly after development Ingenuity. “We had all imagined whilst operating on Ingenuity that our youngsters’ technology or our grandchildren’s technology had been then going to construct the second one model,” he mentioned. “We by no means imagined that, whilst Ingenuity used to be nonetheless flying, we might be operating at the subsequent model of helicopters for Mars.”
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