One of many large challenges of Mars exploration is one thing very small: dust. Effective mud covers a lot of the martian floor, and excessive winds and low gravity imply the mud is definitely whipped up off the floor, overlaying photo voltaic panels and gumming up elements. The Ingenuity helicopter has had its own problems with dust on its photo voltaic panels, limiting the quantity of energy it may draw from the solar.
Now, researchers have used information from Ingenuity to know extra about how mud strikes within the martian air, studying in regards to the dynamics of mud, which may assist future missions take care of this ongoing downside.
Researchers from the Stevens Institute of Know-how, the Area Science Institute, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory took information from Ingenuity’s flights to watch how mud moved round from the floor and into the air when the helicopter took off, hovered, maneuvered, and landed. Even a fast have a look at video footage exhibits simply how a lot mud is stirred up by the helicopter, although it’s tiny and light-weight:
“There’s a purpose that helicopter pilots on Earth desire to land on helipads,” stated one of many researchers, Jason Rabinovitch, in a statement. “When a helicopter lands within the desert, its downdraft can fire up sufficient mud to trigger a zero-visibility ‘brownout’ — and Mars is successfully one large desert.”
The researchers additionally checked out footage of the helicopter that was captured by the Perseverance rover. This helped them mannequin how a lot mud was kicked up, and measure each the mass and dimension of mud clouds.
“It was thrilling to see [how] the Mastcam-Z video from Perseverance, which was taken for engineering causes, ended up exhibiting Ingenuity lifting a lot mud from the floor that it opened a brand new line of analysis,” stated one other of the researchers, Mark Lemmon.
The outcomes confirmed that every time Ingenuity flies, it kicks up round 4 kilos of mud — equal to round one thousandth of its personal mass. That is rather more than a helicopter on Earth would fire up, as a result of there are such a lot of various factors to think about on one other planet.
“When you consider mud on Mars, it’s a must to think about not simply the decrease gravity, but additionally the results of air stress, temperature, air density — there’s lots we don’t but absolutely perceive,” Rabinovich stated.
Understanding how mud strikes on Mars is critical not just for constructing robots that may survive the dusty surroundings, but additionally to assist make landings safer as the quantity of mud within the environment can have an effect on how a spacecraft lands. This can be necessary for future Mars missions just like the deliberate Mars Pattern Return mission, and in addition any future crew missions to the pink planet.
The analysis is revealed within the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
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