I think of it as three R’s—reach, range, resolution. Helicopters, just like drones here on Earth, have the ability to get to places where it is very difficult, if not impossible, for a rover or an astronaut to reach. Steep cliff walls, caverns and other geological features are present on Mars. So this ability would be of interest to the scientific community.
Next is range and resolution—even though Ingenuity is not going to fly very fast, the vehicle is capable of forward flights at 20-30 m per second and could cover kilometres in a day. We will not try this, but inherently, helicopters have a much larger range than rovers. Mars has already been explored by various orbital missions—Mangalyaan, the Mars Reconnaissance orbiter, the Trace Gas Orbiter and now the Chinese and the UAE spacecrafts. But imagine exploring all of Earth only from the orbit; you would miss a lot. The ability of a helicopter to carry a high-resolution instrument, like the camera, to get up close and travel long distances opens a new area of Mars exploration.
How did you arrive at the final design of Ingenuity?
This story is from the March 01, 2021 edition of Down To Earth.
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This story is from the March 01, 2021 edition of Down To Earth.
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