It was the ultimate “say cheese” moment, snapped by a robot posing with its sole companion against the unmatchable backdrop of a planet 171 million miles from Earth.
As they prepare to create aviation history on Mars tomorrow, Nasa’s Perseverance rover and its sidekick, a miniature helicopter drone named Ingenuity, stopped for a team photo taken by a camera on the end of its robotic arm. The final image was stitched together from 62 shots.
“Two bots, one selfie. Greetings from Jezero Crater, where I’ve taken my first selfie of the mission,” the rover’s Twitter account announced. “I’m also watching the Mars helicopter Ingenuity as it gets ready for its first flight in a few days. Daring mighty things indeed.”
Ingenuity arrived on Mars on February 18, bolted inside the rover’s underbelly. Now unpacked, its rotor blades — nicknamed the “blades of glory” — have been unlocked from their stowed position and tested.
Tomorrow, all being well, the 1.8kg (4lb) drone will try to lift off the surface to make the first powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. The idea is to test and prove the technology with a view to using it in future planetary exploration, with drones modelled on Ingenuity acting as aerial scouts. Ingenuity was created by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, in a collaboration between government and industry.
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“It’s a two-way education. By understanding what they are trying to do, we can make recommendations — and by understanding what the art of possible is, it may affect how they think about commercial technology as it is today,” Chris Pruetting, senior director for business development at Qualcomm Technologies, said.
The company provided Ingenuity’s computerised “brain”, enshrined in a thumbnail-sized processor, that allows it to function autonomously.
Controlling the drone in real time is impossible because of the lag as signals travel between Earth and Mars; the rotorcraft has to figure out its own flight functions and keep itself warm during the frigid Martian nights while consuming minimal power. Temperatures can drop to minus 90C, which can freeze and crack unprotected electronic components.
Mars has about one third of Earth’s gravitational pull but its atmosphere is only about 1 per cent as dense at the surface. Flying Ingenuity to an altitude of 10ft on Mars is like trying to fly 100,000ft above the Earth — a stretch too far for ordinary helicopters.
Mission controllers at JPL will send coded commands to Perseverance, which will relay them to Ingenuity. After the flight, the first of five that is planned, the rover will downlink Ingenuity’s first set of engineering data, images and video. How Ingenuity performs will also have lessons for improving drone technology on Earth.
