Mars Helicopter Simply Retains On Going

NASA has stored the helicopter operational, partly, as a result of it’s transitioned from a pure expertise demonstration to an operations demonstration. In reality, Ingenuity has turned out to be fairly helpful to each the science group in addition to the roboticists who function the Perseverance rover. Whereas NASA by no means deliberate to have Ingenuity make occasional scouting flights, its having that functionality appears to have paid off. To know simply how a lot of a distinction the helicopter is making to Perseverance’s mission, we talked to one of many Mars rover drivers at JPL, Olivier Toupet.

Toupet has been at JPL for 9 years, and he’s the supervisor of JPL’s Robotic Aerial Mobility group (which incorporates key members of the Mars Helicopter group). He’s additionally the deputy lead of the rover planner group for Perseverance, which means that he’s one of many of us who tells the rover the place to go and easy methods to get there. In his position as a Perseverance rover driver, Toupet focuses on strategic route planning, which suggests listening to the place the scientists need the rover to go and eager about easy methods to greatest attain all of these targets whereas contemplating issues like security and long run targets. “We design routes to go to the targets that scientists are focused on, or we inform them that it’s too harmful,” Toupet tells us.

“Initially there was plenty of pushback, even from the science group, as a result of they thought it was going to be a distraction. However ultimately, we’re all very proud of the helicopter, together with the science group.”
—Olivier Toupet, NASA JPL

Toupet was additionally one of many rover drivers on the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) packages, and through the years, he and his group have developed a stable instinct about easy methods to drive Mars rovers over various kinds of terrain—easy methods to do it effectively, but additionally minimizing the probabilities that the rover might get broken or caught. Clearly, the stakes are very excessive, so the rover group takes no probabilities, and typically having even a single image from Ingenuity of a possible route can utterly change issues, says Toupet.

IEEE Spectrum: How a lot of a distinction has it made so that you can have Ingenuity scouting for Perseverance on Mars?

Olivier Toupet: My group designs the routes for the rover to drive, and sometimes we now have orbital imagery [from Hi-RISE], which is as you possibly can think about very low decision, after which we now have imagery from the rover on the floor, however it may possibly solely see a number of hundred meters. With the orbital imagery, we will’t see rocks which are smaller than sometimes a couple of meter. However a rock that’s taller than 35 centimeters is an impediment for the rover—it may possibly’t put its wheel over a rock that measurement. So it’s been actually useful to have that helicopter imagery to refine our strategic route and plan to keep away from difficult terrain properly earlier than the rover can see it.”

This animation exhibits the completely different sorts of images that the rover planners are in a position to make use of for route planning, together with imagery from the rover’s personal cameras, photographs taken from orbit, and helicopter photographs.NASA/JPL

What about planning for day-to-day rover operations?

We do take a look at the helicopter photographs when planning our each day drives, however we will not absolutely belief the 3D mesh obtained from pairs of overlapping photographs as a result of we do not know the precise distance the helicopter flew in between every one. We use the photographs in a qualitative method, however we will’t inform the place obstacles are with the precision that we’d want for drive planning—we will’t entrust the lifetime of the rover to these photographs.

You and your group should be extremely expert at understanding Martian terrain from the comparatively low-resolution orbital photographs, since JPL has been planning for rovers on Mars based mostly totally on orbital photographs for many years now. With that in thoughts, how really helpful is high-resolution imagery just like the helicopter supplies?

I used to be really a rover planner on Alternative, Curiosity, and now Perseverance, so I’ve been doing this for a very long time! But it surely’s a good query. You might be right that we’re very skilled with decoding orbital imagery, however there are nonetheless some circumstances the place increased decision imagery may be essential. With Curiosity, there’s a spot referred to as Logan Move, the place in fact we had relied on orbital imagery for our strategic route planning.

View southeastward in the direction of Logan Move from Curiosity’s Mast Digicam, taken in Might of 2015.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

We thought there was a shortcut to get there that we might squeeze by. We drove all the best way there to the beginning of a slope that we have been going to need to drive on with a big discipline of sand dunes beneath it. We’d thought that the slope was more likely to be compacted sand, which might have been wonderful, however what we couldn’t see on the orbital imagery was that the slope was really a skinny layer of sand on prime of pebbles, and when the rover tried driving on it, it started to slide considerably down in the direction of the sand lure. We tried to get throughout the slope a few occasions, however we ended up deciding that it wasn’t secure in any respect, so we needed to take a fairly substantial detour as a result of that strategic route wasn’t possible.

Orbital imagery of Curiosity’s route exhibiting try to traverse Logan Move, adopted by detour by Marias Move.NASA

So general, it’s true that sometimes orbital imagery is sweet sufficient, particularly on terrain that’s fairly benign. However there are occasions the place having increased decision imagery forward of time may be very precious for route planning.

What about for Perseverance? Are there any examples of particular methods wherein detailed imagery from Ingenuity brought on you to vary your thoughts a couple of route?

We landed proper subsequent to an space referred to as Séítah, which is definitely very arduous to drive by as a result of it is full of enormous sand dunes. And getting caught in sand is the nightmare of each rover planner, as a result of it may very well be mission-ending. Proper after touchdown, the scientists have been saying, “let’s cross over Séítah and get to the delta!” I stated, that’s not going to occur, we now have to drive round it.

View of Perseverance’s route round Séítah and present place of the rover and helicopter on the south aspect of Séítah.NASA

Whereas we have been driving round, the helicopter simply flew proper over to the west aspect of Séítah on Flight 9. That was actually attention-grabbing, as a result of it gave us wonderful photographs and we realized that whereas there have been some locations we wouldn’t wish to drive in, there have been different locations that truly appeared traversable.

Picture taken by Ingenuity exhibiting bedrock poking by sand, suggesting that some areas could be traversable by the Perseverance rover.NASA/JPL-Caltech

And so it was actually useful to have that helicopter imagery over Séítah to refine our strategic route. Because of the helicopter, we ended up modifying our route—we have been initially going to drive over a type of hill, however the helicopter flew proper above that hill, and I used to be capable of see that the hill appeared far more difficult than I believed from the orbital imagery. In the long run, we determined to drive round it.

Picture taken by Ingenuity of the hill Perseverance had deliberate to climb, which helped the rover planning group determine to drive across the hill as an alternative.NASA/JPL-Caltech

If we hadn’t had the helicopter imagery, I believe we might nonetheless have made it work and located the identical route. However having the helicopter, we have been capable of plan the route forward of time, and make a significantly better estimate of how lengthy it could take, which helps the entire Perseverance rover group to plan extra effectively. That’s fairly precious.

What has the response been to having the Mars Helicopter stick round as a scout?

The entire group, all of us adore it! We didn’t know we have been going to adore it—it’s actually attention-grabbing, I believe initially there was plenty of pushback, even from the science group, as a result of they thought it was going to be a distraction. However ultimately, we’re all very proud of the helicopter, together with the science group. The extra info we now have the higher—for the science group, for instance, the helicopter can save us plenty of time by shortly investigating probably attention-grabbing areas.

“We’ve discovered a strategy to do each rover and helicopter actions in parallel, in a method that’s very low affect and really excessive worth.”
—Olivier Toupet, NASA JPL

For instance, once we flew the helicopter over Séítah, over the world the place the scientists wished the rover to go, the images that the helicopter took enabled the scientists to determine whether or not it was even price attempting to drive the rover that far—it could have taken us two or three weeks to even get there. However the photographs from the helicopter led the scientists to say, “hey, yeah, this space is definitely actually attention-grabbing, and we see precious rocks that we’d wish to go and pattern. And so it enabled us to make that call early on quite than probably losing two to a few weeks driving over there for nothing.

At one level, JPL stated that even when every thing with the helicopter was working nice, flight operations would stop “no later than the top of August.” Clearly, the helicopter remains to be flying—how a lot of a shock has that been?

Frankly, it’s been a giant shock, however we should always have identified higher! Alternative was purported to be a 90-day mission, and it was nonetheless going 14 years later. A few of us suspected that the helicopter mission would proceed to be prolonged, however the helicopter group performed their playing cards fairly near their chest. Clearly, they have been very centered on conducting the tech demo, and that was all the time a prime precedence. So at any time when we’d ask, “what occurs subsequent,” they’d inform us to not get distracted as a result of a profitable tech demo was why the helicopter was funded to go to Mars.

However I bear in mind being in a gathering with somebody from NASA HQ, who stated one thing that may be very true, which was that the tech demo is nice, however the long-term purpose is to point out the potential of flying on Mars. I actually hope that Ingenuity being so successful signifies that sooner or later there shall be one other helicopter mission to Mars. You may think about a helicopter flying into Vallis Marineris, the most important canyon within the photo voltaic system. It will be superb.

The official story was all the time that there have been going to be 5 flights and that was most likely going to be the top, and so I’m glad that we’re now at flight 17, and the helicopter has been extraordinarily profitable. I can’t wait to see all of the issues we’ll have the ability to do within the months to come back, together with once we attain the delta—there are a lot of steep slopes, and many dunes, so having the helicopter there may be going to be particularly precious.

Indirect view of the Jezero crater delta trying west.NASA/MSSS/USGS

Do you assume that a part of the explanation that the mission retains getting prolonged is as a result of NASA is realizing simply how precious having a helicopter scout may be for a rover like Perseverance?

Sure, I believe perhaps we didn’t initially understand simply how helpful the helicopter could be in supporting our scientific mission. I might additionally say that another excuse the helicopter mission retains getting prolonged is as a result of it’s turned out to have a reasonably minimal affect on the rover group, within the sense that the helicopter group has been fairly impartial and they’re solely flying as soon as each two to a few weeks. We’ve discovered a strategy to do each rover and helicopter actions in parallel, in a method that’s very low affect and really excessive worth.

It seems like having a helicopter scout would make an particularly large distinction as soon as Perseverance reaches the delta. Are you hoping Ingenuity will survive that lengthy, and that it’ll have the ability to scout for the rover indefinitely?

I undoubtedly hope so! Initially, there have been some considerations about whether or not the helicopter’s electronics will have the ability to survive the winter [through March of next year]. There are nonetheless some questions on this, however issues are trying promising. There are additionally communications challenges—thus far, the helicopter has been staying fairly near the rover, inside about 300 meters. However as soon as we’re completed with this space to the southwest of Séítah, the rover shall be driving in a short time again round Séítah to the foot of the delta. Particularly, we’ll be utilizing multi-sol autonav, which is the place we inform the rover to maintain on driving itself autonomously as shortly as it may possibly to its vacation spot over a number of Martian days. Put the pedal to the steel! And so there’s a little little bit of concern whether or not the helicopter can sustain with us. It’s humorous, I really like the helicopter, however I additionally work on the autonav software program, so I hope the rover goes quick.

Perseverance’s deliberate route from Séítah to Jezero’s river deltaNASA

However I believe it’s going to be wonderful. The helicopter group is engaged on improved capabilities, together with the potential to pop up within the sky and speak to the rover, and that would considerably enhance the communications vary, maybe even to kilometers. So whereas they’re going to do their greatest to attempt to sustain with the rover, in parallel they’re engaged on bettering the potential of the helicopter to remain in communications even from farther away. So I am very hopeful that Ingenuity shall be round for a very long time!

As somebody who’s been engaged on a number of generations of Mars rovers, what would you wish to see from the next-generation Mars helicopter?

The large benefit of a helicopter is in fact that it may possibly fly, and the Mars Science Helicopter will have the ability to fly tens of kilometers in a single day. To offer you a way of perspective, we’re hoping that Perseverance will have the ability to drive a number of hundred meters in a day. So the helicopter would have a number of orders of magnitude extra vary, which is superb—you would think about going not simply to 1 web site on Mars, however to a number of websites.

Mars Science Helicopter idea in comparison with Ingenuity.

However the large drawback of the helicopter, sadly, is the payload. A rover can carry plenty of science devices, whereas the helicopter, as a result of the air density is so low on Mars, has a a lot decrease most payload, which restricts how a lot science you are able to do. That being stated, you would think about having the ability to swap devices—what for those who might carry simply the instrument that was needed for the particular web site you’re visiting that day? After all there are technical challenges with that, however yeah, personally I do assume that the following mission must be a helicopter simply by itself. It will be nice to see that sooner or later.

And once we ship one other rover to Mars, ought to it have its personal helicopter scout?

That is an incredible query, and a controversial one, as a result of the following mission to Mars is about pattern return, and the European Area Company is making the rover, not NASA. And so, I don’t know who will get to make such choices, however I personally do assume {that a} helicopter could be extraordinarily precious—not simply as a scout, however probably additionally as a backup, that would retrieve the samples if the rover had some points. That may be nice to have for positive.