NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter sees backshell and parachute that helped Perseverance Rover Land on the red planet
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This image of Perseverance’s backshell and parachute was collected by NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 26th flight on April 19, 2022. Images obtained during the flight may provide insight into the components’ performance during the rover’s entry, descent, and landing on Feb. 18, 2021. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Eyeing some of the components that enabled the
rover to get safely to the Martian surface could provide valuable insights for
future missions.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recently
surveyed both the parachute that helped the agency’s Perseverance rover land on
Mars and the cone-shaped backshell that protected the rover in deep space and
during its fiery descent toward the Martian surface on Feb. 18, 2021. Engineers
with the Mars Sample Return program asked whether Ingenuity could provide this
perspective. What resulted were 10 aerial color images taken April 19 during
Ingenuity’s Flight 26.
“NASA extended Ingenuity flight operations to
perform pioneering flights such as this,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s team
lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Every time
we’re airborne, Ingenuity covers new ground and offers a perspective no
previous planetary mission could achieve. Mars Sample Return’s reconnaissance
request is a perfect example of the utility of aerial platforms on Mars.”
Entry, descent, and landing on Mars is
fast-paced and stressful, not only for the engineers back on Earth, but also
for the vehicle enduring the gravitational forces, high temperatures, and other
extremes that come with entering Mars’ atmosphere at nearly 12,500 mph (20,000
kph). The parachute and backshell were previously imaged from a distance by the
Perseverance rover.
But those collected by the rotorcraft (from an
aerial perspective and closer) provide more detail. The images have the
potential to help ensure safer landings for future spacecraft such as the Mars
Sample Return Lander, which is part of a multimission campaign that would bring
Perseverance’s samples of Martian rocks, atmosphere, and sediment back to Earth
for detailed analysis.
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“Perseverance had the best-documented Mars
landing in history, with cameras showing everything from parachute inflation to
touchdown,” said JPL’s Ian Clark, former Perseverance systems engineer and now
Mars Sample Return ascent phase lead. “But Ingenuity’s images offer a different
vantage point. If they either reinforce that our systems worked as we think
they worked or provide even one dataset of engineering information we can use
for Mars Sample Return planning, it will be amazing. And if not, the pictures
are still phenomenal and inspiring.”
In the images of the upright backshell and the
debris field that resulted from it impacting the surface at about 78 mph (126
kph), the backshell’s protective coating appears to have remained intact during
Mars atmospheric entry. Many of the 80 high-strength suspension lines
connecting the backshell to the parachute are visible and also appear intact.
Spread out and covered in dust, only about a third of the orange-and-white
parachute – at 70.5 feet (21.5 meters) wide, it was the biggest ever deployed
on Mars – can be seen, but the canopy shows no signs of damage from the
supersonic airflow during inflation. Several weeks of analysis will be needed
for a more final verdict.
Flight 26 Maneuvers
Ingenuity’s 159-second flight began at 11:37
a.m. local Mars time April 19, on the one-year anniversary of its first flight.
Flying 26 feet (8 meters) above ground level, Ingenuity traveled 630 feet (192
meters) to the southeast and took its first picture. The rotorcraft next headed
southwest and then northwest, taking images at pre-planned locations along the
route. Once it collected 10 images in its flash memory, Ingenuity headed west
246 feet (75 meters) and landed. Total distance covered: 1,181 feet (360
meters). With the completion of Flight 26, the rotorcraft has logged over 49
minutes aloft and traveled 3.9 miles (6.2 kilometers).
“To get the shots we needed, Ingenuity did a
lot of maneuvering, but we were confident because there was complicated
maneuvering on flights 10, 12, and 13,” said Håvard Grip, chief pilot of
Ingenuity at JPL. “Our landing spot set us up nicely to image an area of
interest for the Perseverance science team on Flight 27, near ‘Séítah’ ridge.”
The new area of operations in Jezero Crater’s
dry river delta marks a dramatic departure from the modest, relatively flat
terrain Ingenuity had been flying over since its first flight. Several miles
wide, the fan-shaped delta formed where an ancient river spilled into the lake
that once filled Jezero Crater. Rising more than 130 feet (40 meters) above the
crater floor and filled with jagged cliffs, angled surfaces, projecting
boulders, and sand-filled pockets, the delta promises to hold numerous geologic
revelations – perhaps even proof that microscopic life existed on Mars billions
of years ago.
Upon reaching the delta, Ingenuity’s first
orders may be to help determine which of two dry river channels Perseverance
should climb to reach the top of the delta. Along with route-planning
assistance, data provided by the helicopter will help the Perseverance team
assess potential science targets. Ingenuity may even be called upon to image
geologic features too far afield for the rover to reach or to scout landing
zones and sites on the surface where sample caches could be deposited for the
Mars Sample Return program.
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Source: NASA
