On 19 April, NASA made historical past by changing into the first house company to fly an plane on one other planet. Its Ingenuity helicopter took an nearly 40-second flight, rising three metres up in the air in the Jezero Crater on Mars. NASA has known as the occasion its Wright brothers second, as the siblings flew the world’s first aircraft in 1903. Ingenuity additionally carried with it a postage-sized piece of cloth from their plane, generally known as the Flyer, and it was hooked up to a cable below the photo voltaic panel. While important, the flight was additionally experimental and never with out obstacles, as a software program concern nearly threw a spanner in the works.
Flying three metres excessive won’t seem to be a giant deal, seeing how we’re capable of obtain far larger heights on Earth. However, flying in the Martian ambiance just isn’t a straightforward feat, as it is rather totally different from that of the Earth.
“The main reason is that the atmosphere is very, very thin. It’s about one percent of the density of the atmosphere at [Earth’s] sea level. That’s the equivalent of about 100,000 feet of altitude on Earth or three times the height of Mount Everest. We don’t generally fly things that high. Commercial airliners fly at about 35,000 feet; the Earth record for helicopter altitude at about 41,000 feet,” defined Amelia Quon, Ingenuity chamber check engineer at JPL, throughout a press convention.
In order to fly, the helicopter needed to be small and lightweight. It weighs 1.8 kg and stands at round 0.49 metres tall. It has two pairs of mild, counter-rotating blades (an higher and decrease pair) that makes it simple for the helicopter to slice by way of the Martian ambiance and acquire altitude.
This flight wouldn’t have been attainable with out the group engaged on the Perseverance rover, and specifically, the Ingenuity helicopter. Indian-origin engineer Dr J (Bob) Balaram is the chief engineer and designer of this mission. He works at the Mobility & Robotic Systems Department at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and has labored at NASA for the final 20 years.
Balaram just isn’t the first Indian origin scientist to be concerned on this Mars mission. Swati Mohan, one other Indian, was the lead operation engineer for the Perseverance rover mission. The rover carried the helicopter to Mars and solely lately launched it to the planet. More than a dozen engineers of Indian origin are concerned in the mission, which is one thing US President Joe Biden touched upon in February when he mentioned Indian-Americans are taking on the US.
As a baby, Balaram was impressed by the Apollo landings on the moon, which sparked an curiosity in house exploration. NASA mentioned when an interviewer requested whether or not anybody had informed him the concept of a Mars helicopter was loopy, Balaram rapidly jumped in and mentioned, “Everyone. All the time.”
In February, earlier than the flight, Balaram mentioned that if the Mars helicopter was profitable, it might open up an entire new dimension of exploring Mars.
And he was proper. The $85 million Ingenuity miniature robotic is getting used to display the know-how that’s wanted for flying an plane in the Martian ambiance. It will assist in flying different, extra superior robotic autos and take us a step nearer to a future human mission to the Red Planet.
In an interview with Down to Earth, Balaram mentioned the helicopter will assist with three issues – attain, vary and backbone. It will give scientists on Earth an opportunity to have a look at hard-to-reach locations like steep cliff partitions, caverns or different geological options current on Mars. While Ingenuity just isn’t a fast-moving helicopter we’re extra acquainted with, he mentioned it’s succesful of “forward flights at 20-30 metres per second and could cover kilometres in a day.”
However NASA “will not try this,” he mentioned, “but inherently, helicopters have a much larger range than rovers.”
After Ingenuity’s flight, Balaram mentioned “She’s even healthier than she was before this flight – she shook off some of her dust that had been covering the solar panels and is in fact producing even more solar energy than before.”
Balaram is an IIT-Madras alumnus and accomplished B.Tech, Mechanical Engineering from the institute as half of the 1975-80 batch. He then obtained his Master’s in Computer and System Engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and later accomplished his PhD from the institute as properly.
During his 20 years with NASA, Balaram has acquired two NASA Awards and eight New Technology awards.
Some of the different work he has been concerned in throughout his stint at JPL consists of researching precision touchdown strategies for Mars, in addition to superior simulation methods for planetary Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL). This was tailored for use by the Curiosity and Perseverance rover missions. He led the group that developed an EDL simulator tailored to be used in the Mars Science Laboratory mission. He additionally co-developed a simulator used for planetary rover simulation.
The Mars Science Laboratory is a robotic house probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on 26 November, 2011, which efficiently landed the Curiosity rover in the Gale Crater on 6 August, 2012.
Some of Balaram’s different works embody a Mars aerial robotic notion system, a deep-diving Venus balloon gondola idea and balloon-carried imaging sondes for deployment on Venus. He additionally co-developed a brand new sort of rover named the Rocky-7 rover platform, which is at the moment a prototype.
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