the winter is coming. It is strange to read this phrase so familiar if we are in the northern hemisphere of the earth, and in the southern hemisphere it corresponds. And also in the region of Mars, where Persistent all-terrain vehicle and her little helicoptercalled naivete. This car has far exceeded all its intended goals, with 27 flights and almost 7 km covered. NASA doesn’t want to give it up as originally planned, so they’ve been well scared lately. The approaching arrival of winter, as well as the accumulation of dust on its solar panels, makes it difficult for a helicopter to fly. charge your batteries. As a result, on May 3, all communication with him was lost.
It was a blow to the scientists of the project, who hoped to squeeze some more of it. So they decided to play their last card: wait for Ingenuity’s helicopter to contact Perseverance. It was known that once he could minimally charge his batteries, that would be the first thing he would do. ‘Cause it’s yours main connection, both with Mars and Earth. However, it could happen that the rover was busy with its other numerous tasks and did not answer the call.
To solve this problem, NASA scientists programmed Perseverance to do not perform any operations for a full 24 hours. Basically, they let him sit and wait for his little helicopter to be called. And it worked. Now they know that everything is fine, but it will take some extra steps to get it back up and running. It seems that the approach of winter does not do him any good, but there is still hope.
Unexpected launch of Ingenuity helicopter
The Ingenuity helicopter, which flew to Mars with the Perseverance rover, made its first flight in April 2021.
Thus, it became the first vehicle of its kind to fly to another planet. His mission was basically this: to show what he could for future missions. For this reason, in total 5 flights in 30 days. After that, the Perseverance helicopter will be dropped on Mars.
Initially, only 5 flights were scheduled in 30 days.
but that was it much better than expected. True, there were some fears, but he succeeded in all of them. Therefore, more and more tests were carried out. The sixth flight arrived, as well as the seventh, eighth and ninth. already 27 and NASA is not going to fire him just yet. In fact, they hope to squeeze as much out of it as possible.
The problem is they didn’t have effects of martian winter. A station whose arrival also affects the power generation of other Martian vehicles, such as the InSight lander.
Dust and few sunny days affected the battery charge of the helicopter, which is now at a minimum. But what can be done to fix this?
How to save energy on Mars
After the Ingenuity helicopter contacted Perseverance, NASA scientists are once again optimistic.
They confirmed that he managed to charge 41% of his batteries, so it’s only a matter of time before he reaches 100%. They hope that in a few days it will work again. However, you will have to save all possible energy. And for this they made some changes to the programming of their instruments. For example, it will only turn on its heaters if the ambient temperature drops. below -40ºFinstead of the 5ºF at which they were turned on before.
This may cause the helicopter pretty extreme situation.which can further speed up your retirement. In any case, everything that you are doing now is already much more than it was originally intended. Ingenuity is already a champion, but that is why its creators have a hard time giving it up. A little more, that’s all they try.
Source: Hiper Textual
