It seems that ingenuity is being restored by a communication problem on Mars.
NASA’s Jet Engine Laboratory (JPL) re-established contact with the miniature helicopter on Mars on Thursday (May 5th) after missing a scheduled call about two days earlier, the agency said on Friday (May 6th).
Engineers speculate that the helicopter may have entered a low-power state due to a combination of high levels of dust in the atmosphere and low local temperatures. The situation has made solar-powered Ingenuity unable to communicate with its base station, the Mars rover Perseverance, which sends helicopter status to Earth via a Martian satellite.
“The dust reduces the amount of sunlight hitting the solar mass, reducing Ingenuity’s ability to recharge its six lithium-ion batteries,” JPL continued. “When the battery charge status fell below the lower limit, the helicopter’s field programmable input grid (FPGA) was turned off.”
Connected: One year later, the Ingenuity helicopter is still strong on Mars
Ingenuity was recently approved to fly at least in September and has already flown 28 flights. This is well beyond his original flight plan, of five excursions planned after his landing on the Martian surface in February 2021, along with Perseverance. The rotation of Ingenuity’s rotor in flight was increased last September to take into account the decrease in atmospheric density due to seasonal changes in the mission’s landing area, the Jezero crater on Mars.
So far, the plan is working well. The rotorcraft has traveled a total of 4.2 miles (6.9 kilometers) in flight and now serves as a reconnaissance reconnaissance as the mission enters an ancient delta in search of potential signs of Martian life. Recently, the mini-helicopter even took valuable pictures of Perseverance’s discarded landing system to help space engineers plan future missions.
But the helicopter is battling dust, seasonal changes and conditions outside of its design plan, which means it will face more obstacles in continuing its flights in the coming months.
The FGPA is crucial to ensure that Ingenuity continues to function, including controlling the power supply to avionics and operating heaters to keep Ingenuity alive on cold Martian nights. He is also responsible for keeping track of the spacecraft’s time, including planned talks with Perseverance.
Controllers suspect that after the FGPA lost power, which happened during a Martian night, the helicopter’s clock restarted and the heaters turned off.
“When the sun rose the next morning and the solar array began to charge the batteries, the helicopter’s clock was no longer in sync with the clock on board the rover,” said JPL. “Essentially, when Ingenuity decided it was time to contact Perseverance, the rover’s base station was not listening.”
To try to capture Ingenuity again, the engineers ordered Perseverance to listen to the signal for almost all Martian salt (day) on May 5, and finally heard from the helicopter around 11:45 a.m. local time on Mars. The ingenuity was limited in what he could send to maintain his power, but the controllers were able to determine that the helicopter’s basic health seemed to be good.
“The radio connection between Ingenuity and Perseverance was stable, the spacecraft’s temperatures were within expectations, the solar mass was recharging the battery at the expected speed for this season and the battery was strong, containing 41% of full charge,” said JPL.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter makes its 13th flight to the Red Planet in this image captured by NASA’s Mastcam-Z camera on NASA’s Perseverance spacecraft on September 4, 2021 (Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS )
However, the dust will remain a constant threat to the solar mission and will make it difficult to recharge the batteries to maintain vital heaters and the clock during the frosty night. JPL officials said Ingenuity has turned on its heaters every time the battery temperature has been below 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius) for the past three soles. (Martian salt is about 40 minutes longer than Earth’s day.) However, engineers are worried that if this approach continues, the battery will not be able to keep the heaters running all night.
Now the engineers have a new plan. Since last week, a new set of commands has changed the point at which the battery is turned on to minus 40 degrees F (minus 40 degrees C). The helicopter will also have the task of shutting down immediately, instead of using a “precious” battery charge, JPL said.
“The team hopes that this strategy will allow the battery to hold the charge it has collected during the day. “Ingenuity engineers hope that after a few days on the helicopter’s massif submerged in the limited rays, the battery will reach a point where the spacecraft can return for normal operations,” said JPL.
The risk is that Ingenuity carries with it commercially available parts that are not optimized to remain active in the deep cold of Mars, estimated at minus 112 degrees F (minus 80 degrees C) at Ingenuity’s location. That’s why JPL is careful, saying the engineers hope to maintain more battery power (and communications) for at least a few more Earth weeks.
“We have always known that the Martian winter and the dust storm season will present new challenges for Ingenuity, in particular colder salts, increased atmospheric dust and more frequent dust storms,” said Teddy Tzanetos, team leader, in the same statement. of Ingenuity in JPL. . “Every flight and every mile from a distance beyond our original 30-salt mission pushed the spacecraft to its limits every single salt on Mars.”
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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