Ingenuity (helicopter)

Concept The development of the project that would eventually become Ingenuity started in 2012 when JPL director Charles Elachi visited the lab's Autonomous Systems Division, which had done relevant concept work. By January 2015, NASA agreed to fund the development of a full-size model, which came to be known as the "risk reduction" vehicle. NASA spent about $80 million to build Ingenuity and about $5 million to operate the helicopter. • Ben Pipenberg – AeroVironment Design Lead On 15 June 2021, the team behind Ingenuity was named the 2021 winner of the John L. "Jack" Swigert Jr. Award for Space Exploration from the Space Foundation. On 5 April 2022, the National Aeronautic Association awarded Ingenuity and its group in JPL the 2021 Collier Trophy. == Opposition ==

The idea to include a helicopter in the Mars 2020 mission was opposed by several NASA leaders, scientists and JPL employees. Up until the end of the 2010s, they argued against integrating a helicopter into the mission. For three years, the future Ingenuity was developed outside the Mars 2020 project and its budget. Although NASA management accepted assurances in the spring of 2018 that the addition of a helicopter would not harm the goals of the expedition, Mars 2020 chief scientist Kenneth Farley stated; "I have personally been opposed to it because we are working very hard for efficiencies and spending 30 days working on a technology demonstration does not further those goals directly from the science point of view". Farley was convinced that the helicopter was a distraction from the priority scientific tasks, unacceptable even for a short time. The skepticism on the part of NASA leadership was not unfounded. Scientists, engineers and managers proceeded from a pragmatic comparison of the benefits of additional aerial reconnaissance with the costs that inevitably fall on the schedule for the rover to complete all the tasks assigned to it. During a live stream from NASA, MiMi Aung, the Ingenuity Project Manager, and Jennifer Trosper discussed the value of Ingenuity. Trosper argued that the Perseverance rover would outpace the helicopter due to its auto-navigation capability, thus negating one of central arguments for the value to the mission of the helicopter. At the end of the test window, NASA extended support for Ingenuity for another 30 sols, limiting the frequency of departures to one flight every few weeks. On 14 June 2021, the Director of the Mars Exploration program, E. Janson, and the Principal Mars Explorer, M. Meyer, directly addressed all the staff of the Mars 2020 project. During this address they cautioned the staff to keep their Ingenuity enthusiasm in check, and concentrate on collecting samples. On the same date, in their report to the Planetary Advisory Committee (PAC), the helicopter was mentioned only in the past tense, e.g. "...placed Ingenuity and completed the technology demonstration phase...". Despite this early pessimism, Ingenuity proved to be more than capable of keeping up with Perseverance, actually staying ahead of the rover for the majority of the traverse up the Jezero delta. While it was able to keep up with Perseverance, in the spring of 2022 the helicopter did begin to fall behind the rover starting at the beginning of Sol 400. Insufficient solar energy during the Martian winter was the main driver of poor operational performance in the latter half of 2022. == Design ==

Mechanical design Ingenuity consists of a rectangular fuselage measuring suspended below a pair of coaxial contra-rotating rotors measuring in diameter. and 104 color images from the terrain camera (RTE) have been published. Flight software The helicopter uses autonomous control during its flights, which are telerobotically planned and scripted by operators at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It communicates with the Perseverance rover directly before and after each landing. The flight control and navigation software on Ingenuity can be updated remotely, which has been used to correct software bugs and add new capabilities between flights. Prior to flight 34, the software was updated to avoid hazards during landing and to correct a navigation error when traveling over uneven terrain. This update became necessary as the helicopter traveled away from the relatively flat terrain of the original landing site, and towards more varied and hazardous terrain. Specifications == Operational history ==

Primary mission Perseverance dropped the debris shield protecting Ingenuity on 21 March 2021, and the helicopter deployed from the underside of the rover to the Martian surface on 3 April 2021. • Avoid significant interference with, or delay of, rover operations • Maintain vehicle health and safety • Perform scouting for tactical planning and science assessment • Perform experiments to inform mission and vehicle design for future Mars rotorcraft, or collect data for discretionary science Operations Demo Phase Just before the final demonstration flight on 30 April 2021, NASA approved the continued operation of Ingenuity in an "operational demonstration phase" to explore using a helicopter as supplementary reconnaissance for ground assets like Perseverance. After 12 flights by September 2021, the mission was extended indefinitely. JPL had no contact with the helicopter for 63 days after flight 52 on 26 April 2023. Mission controllers had intentionally flown Ingenuity out of radio range, expecting to regain communication in a few days. Perseverance controllers, however, changed their exploration plans and drove further out of range, and then had difficulty collecting rock samples, adding another delay before finally driving toward the helicopter and re-establishing contact on 28 June. Flight 72 accident On 18 January 2024 during the landing of flight 72, a rotor blade broke off and other blade tips were damaged, resulting in Ingenuity's permanent grounding. The accident is believed to have resulted from an autonomous navigation error in a mostly featureless area of sand dunes, which offered few points of reference. In the days after its accident, Ingenuity remained responsive to signals from JPL, which commanded a low-speed rotation of the rotors to show their shadows at different angles. The helicopter photographed the shadows, which revealed that one of the blades was entirely missing. On 26 February 2024, NASA released images from Perseverance, which had driven to within of Ingenuity, showing the blade lying on the sand roughly from the body of the helicopter; another image shows Ingenuity sitting upright, without the blade. The helicopter's vision navigation system was designed to track textured surface features using a downward-looking camera. This capability successfully carried out ''Ingenuity's'' first five flights and dozens more, but on flight 72 the helicopter was in a region of Jezero Crater filled with steep, relatively featureless sand ripples. Following a few final transmissions and a farewell message by the rotorcraft on 16 April 2024, the JPL team uploaded new software commands that direct the helicopter to continue collecting data well after its communications with the rover have ceased. Ingenuity will serve as a stationary platform, testing the performance of its solar panel, batteries, and other electronic equipment. In addition, the helicopter will take a picture of the surface with its color camera and collect temperature data from sensors placed throughout the rotorcraft and store it on board, such that in case of future retrieval by either a rover, aircraft or astronauts, the results will provide a long-term perspective on Martian weather patterns and dust movement, aiding the design of future rotorcraft. Engineers expect Ingenuity to store up to 20 years of daily data, if the craft is unhampered by the local conditions. Perseverance will continue exploration of Jezero crater, out of Ingenuity's radio range. == Follow-on missions and future work and conceptions ==

There are currently no plans to send Curiosity/Perseverance-class scientific laboratories to Mars, and funding for Martian projects is frozen to the level necessary to complete the Mars sample-return campaign. == Tributes to the Wright brothers ==

NASA and JPL officials described the first Mars Ingenuity helicopter flight as their "Wright Brothers moment", by analogy to the first successful powered airplane flight on Earth. A small piece of the wing cloth from the Wright brothers' 1903 Wright Flyer is attached to a cable underneath Ingenuitys solar panel. In 1969, Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong carried a similar Wright Flyer artifact to the Moon in the Lunar Module Eagle. NASA named Ingenuity first take-off and landing airstrip Wright Brothers Field, which the UN agency ICAO gave an airport code of JZRO for Jezero Crater, and the drone itself a type designator of IGY, call-sign INGENUITY. == Gallery ==

Maps of flights == Navigation system and operational lessons ==

Ingenuitys navigation system relies on a combination of visual odometry, inertial measurement, and terrain-relative navigation to maintain stability and position on Mars. The system uses a downward-facing camera to track surface features while onboard algorithms estimate velocity and attitude. These technologies enabled Ingenuity to autonomously navigate in the thin Martian atmosphere, compensating for light delays that prevent real-time control from Earth. Data from Ingenuity's more than 70 flights is now guiding the design of future aerial vehicles, including the Mars Sample Recovery Helicopter, improving precision landing, obstacle avoidance, and autonomous decision-making. == See also ==