![]() Through this time, the team continued to execute a steady series of short flights, always hoping for a renewal and rebirth into that oft-remembered mode of nighttime survival. Still, the cheerful heli kept moving forward in spite of these obstacles, exhibiting a surplus of the very attribute for which its rover companion was named. With each storm, the dust layer on the solar panel grew thicker, making the prospect of surviving the night fainter. Instead, each time the skies appeared to be clearing for good, the heli was battered by another dust storm that blocked out the sun. Indeed, the nuclear-powered rover carried on much as it had before, driving unperturbed while the helicopter limped doggedly behind it.Īs winter progressed, Ingenuity looked forward to increased sunshine and the energetic flights that that would allow. However, the helicopter’s now extremely limited energy budget made it almost impossible for it to fulfil its role as Perseverance’s faithful companion and scout. Under normal conditions, Perseverance’s four-legged friend can fly further in 3 minutes than the rover can drive in a day. As the primary seasonal dust storm abated, the team managed to resume flying with a series of short, low-energy flights, covering limited distances as it struggled to keep up with the rover. With less solar power, came less energy for flights, eventually grounding the helicopter entirely for two consecutive months. Nighttime temperatures plunged to -85 C (-120 F), requiring more and more power to stay warm. The Martian winter is a one-two punch of lower insolation (amount of solar energy reaching a given area) and greater dust storm activity. The team managed only a single checkout flight before winter came in earnest. Dealing with this failure and adapting to the new operations paradigm consumed precious time while the Sun grew darker with each passing sol. The first casualty was the inclinometer, which failed soon after the start of winter operations. Ingenuity’s heaters normally kept its internal components at a comfortable -15 C, but with a complete power loss every night, components were now being subjected to far more extreme temperatures. With the Martian spring still eight long earth-months away, engineers had to find a way to operate in this new normal. Only when a communications link was established could Ingenuity’s clock be synchronized to allow a scheduled activity later in the day.Īs the Martian year is twice as long as Earth’s, so too are its seasons. As each morning’s wakeup was different, the team had to use the helicopter base station on the rover to search for Ingenuity’s signal using a search window covering the predicted wakeup time. ![]() The exact timing of this entire process is based on a complicated combination of fluctuating factors such as battery charge, wind, dust, and temperature. Instead, the computer wakes up and attempts to talk to the rover 2 hours and 15 minutes after the initial power-on. The overnight brownout, while not fatal, does reset the onboard clock, causing Ingenuity to lose all sense of time and forget to wake up as scheduled. This process, performed by the “Lazarus circuit”, allows the helicopter, like Lazarus of old, to return to life after being effectively dead the night before. This required the helicopter to generate enough electrical power to activate heaters, thaw out the frozen battery, and charge it sufficiently before bringing the avionics back to life. Or in more familiar terms, it was mid-November on the Martian surface.ĭespite the overnight loss of power, the morning sun was still strong enough to revive the helicopter in the morning. It likely happened in the early morning hours of Sol 426 (May 1st, 2022), a date roughly halfway between the Autumnal equinox and Winter Solstice on Mars. The small helicopter, sitting on a planet 240 million km (149 million miles) away, had run out of power while trying to keep itself warm during the cold Martian night. On May 3rd 2022 Ingenuity’s team of engineers and scientists got their first hint of the hardship to come when they opened their comm logs to find radio silence.
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