Nearly two years have passed since Ingenuity, the tiny helicopter, and Perseverance, the one-ton rover, left Earth. They've made a lot of progress since then. They landed in Mars' Jezero Crater last February. Perseverance is exploring the area for signs of ancient life. Ingenuity, two months after landing in Mars' Jezero Crater, separated from Perseverance's stomach and performed the first ever flights in the atmosphere of another planet. Although it's difficult to believe, you should remember, when you see this story that we first reported last January, that this happened in outer space, millions of miles away.
Perseverance took a selfie last year with Ingenuity, its tiny helicopter, in this martian crater 170 million miles away from Earth. Two weeks later, Ingenuity flew for the first time at ten feet above the ground. The rover captured the historic flight with its cameras. Although it may not seem like much, it was an incredible moment for all those who had worked so hard to make it possible.
Mimi Aung, project manager, led the six-year-old Ingenuity team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Anderson Cooper: Is it difficult to fly a helicopter over Mars?
Mimi Aung : Very, very, very (LAUGHTER), hard. It was a very difficult question to answer.
Anderson Cooper: Many people believed it was possible, but it couldn't be done.
Mimi Aung: It's counter-intuitive. You need atmosphere for the blades and atmosphere to push atmosphere to lift. The--
Anderson Cooper: Mars' atmosphere is totally different
Mimi Aung says the atmosphere on Mars is very thin. The room we are in is 1% of what the atmosphere over there. The fundamental question was, "Can you generate enough lift to lift anything?"
Ingenuity flew higher and further in subsequent flights. It traveled more than four miles over Mars' surface. This is a great achievement for NASA and its partners in private sector, who contributed to various parts of the helicopter.
Matt Keennon is known for making things that fly. AeroVironment is a drone company that produces drones for civilian and military use.
Anderson Cooper: That's amazing.
Keennon and his colleagues created the robotic hummingbird ten years ago as part of a military research project. It has a tiny camera attached.
Anderson Cooper: Whoa (LAUGH).
Matt Keennon says it's there.
Anderson Cooper: Oh my God. That's amazing.
Keennon and Ben Pipenberg, an engineer, led the aerovironment group that created Ingenuity’s rotors and motors and landing gear.
Anderson Cooper: What was so difficult about this?
Ben Pipenberg says it must be both a spacecraft and an aircraft. It is quite challenging to fly it on Mars as a spacecraft because of its density. It is similar to Earth at 100,000 feet.
Anderson Cooper: What are your options?
Ben Pipenberg
For example, the helicopter's blades are made from a styrofoam-like material that has been coated with carbon fiber.
They are strong and stiff.
Ben Pipenberg: It's easy to see how light and stiff it is.
Anderson Cooper: It doesn't weigh anything.
Ben Pipenberg says: It weighs nothing.
It's incredibly light, but it is very good.
Matt Keennon: Here we go, taking off.
This is the first time they have shown this version to an outsider. They plan to use it for education and research. It is called "Terry."
Terry's blades spin at around 400 revolutions per hour on Earth. To generate the same lift on Mars, the blades would have to spin six times as fast due to Mars' thin atmosphere.
To build and run "Terry", ingenuity was a costly investment of $85 million. It's nerve-wracking to have its controls.
Matt Keennon says: Okay, you can go ahead. It's there. You can slide it right. If you wish, you can push it to the right. Slide left.
Anderson Cooper: Wow.
Matt Keennon : I'll bring this up a bit. Now, stop.
Mars is not compatible with the joysticks that Terry used to fly. It takes too long for radio signals to reach Mars.
Matt Keennon isn't able to fly a helicopter from Mars, despite being a master at flying drones and hummingbirds. Here's what happened when Keennon attempted to fly Ingenuity using a joystick in 2014.
Mimi Aung: Surprise.
Anderson Cooper: Wow. (LAUGH) Thank you so much for this vehicle...
Anderson Cooper: This demonstration shows that a human being cannot respond fast enough to control it.
Mimi Aung: Yes.
Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory provided Ingenuity with an automated system that allows it stabilize itself and to navigate by itself. The chamber test was passed by the new system in 2016.
Mimi Aung: You know that the blades are being controlled, about 400 to 500 times per second.
It flew. However, Ingenuity had to be under four pounds and fit into the stomach of Perseverance.
It had to be hard enough to make it to Mars.
Perseverance and Ingenuity launched from Cape Canaveral on July 30, 2020.
This simulation shows that the heat shield of the spacecraft hit the Martian atmosphere nearly seven months later. It traveled 12,000 miles an hour.
Al Chen, the leader and commander of the landing team, was sitting in the control room. It would take approximately 11 minutes for radio signals to travel from Earth and Mars. Pre-programmed, the spacecraft could descend, maneuver and land on its own. If his part of the mission was unsuccessful, all the work he and his coworkers would have to do on Mars will be lost.
Anderson Cooper: How many years have you been working on this project?
Al Chen: We are approaching nine years.
Anderson Cooper: Is that really true? This is a lot of work in seven minutes.
Al Chen: Yep. Nine--
Anderson Cooper: -terror.
Al Chen: Nine years of hard work, seven minutes terror. (LAUGH)
Anderson Cooper: If the parachute fails, it can be done.
Al Chen: Yes. It's not something anyone wants to do.
This landing of a spacecraft by gravity has been the best ever. Six cameras captured it from various angles. The parachute was deployed. Perseverance was able to see the ground for the first time after the heat shield collapsed like a lens cap. This is not a simulation. This is how it looks to parachut onto Mars.
Anderson Cooper: What speed is it moving now?
Al Chen: Yes, we are still traveling about 350 miles per hour and slowing down.
Anderson Cooper: It looks so gentle here, but it's actually falling at more that 300 miles per hour.
Al Chen: Yes. We are heading straight down at---- at racecar speeds.
Below were a number of safe landing areas. The spacecraft was being blown to the east by the wind. Perseverance also sent a message to Earth, indicating that the thrusters it required to slow down might not work properly.
Anderson Cooper: Do you see a reading that the jets are not helping the aircraft slow down or control its landing?
Al Chen: The stopping force.
Anderson Cooper: What do you do?
Al Chen: You can't do anything, right? All of this has already taken place. This is the most mind-bending part.
Anderson Cooper: If you are now sweating, it is because you were talking about it.
Al Chen: Yes, exactly. I'm right there again. (LAUGHTER). So, ah, yeah.
Al Chen was relieved to hear that Perseverance's computer-controlled landing system found a landing spot in even rocky terrain. The thrusters performed despite being warned. As they fire, you can see the thrusters kicking up dust to slow down the spacecraft.
Perseverance was lowered to the ground by the descent stage, also known as the "skycrane". After hovering for a while, it flew away to crash safely.
Al Chen: Now comes the descent stage.
Anderson Cooper: Wow.
Al Chen: That was a big sigh-of-relief--you know? I nearly-- collapsed at the sight of this console.
Two months after landing on Mars, engineers, programmers, and scientists from Earth lived on Mars. Their job is to keep the rover healthy and to tell it where and how to find signs of life. Perseverance was sleeping to conserve energy on the Martian night. The team on Earth analyzed the images and instrument readings it sent back. The team prepared a list for Perseverance to complete the next morning.
Matt Wallace: It's just past midnight on Mars. The vehicle is asleep.
Matt Wallace, the project manager, explained that a day on Mars takes 40 minutes more than a day on Earth. The team's schedule was always changing.
Anderson Cooper: These people are Mars night shift workers.
Matt Wallace: (LAUGHING) That's a great way to look at it.
Anderson Cooper: Working night shifts is hard enough. This is a night shift which is constantly changing--
Matt Wallace: Always moving.
Anderson Cooper: Yes--
Matt Wallace: That's right. Yeah.
Perseverance spent its fourth day on Mars. It swiveled its powerful camera up on its mast to take a look around. Sean Doran, a space enthusiast, put the images together and set them to music. The movie was posted on YouTube.
One of the most prominent scientists involved in the project was touched by the sight.
Ken Farley: After I had finished my beer, I watched the thing scroll by. That was (CLICK) the moment I felt like I was there.
Ken Farley is the head of the science team that will guide Perseverance through Jezero Crater. Scientists have long sought to find signs of ancient life in this area.
Ken Farley: Earth's oldest fossil evidence of life is three and a quarter billion years old. These rocks were found in shallow waters. The lake that formed this crater is three and a quarter billion years ago. We are therefore looking at the same environment on two different planets in the same time frame.
Anderson Cooper: What does Anderson Cooper mean if it is determined, however far in the future, that "No, there wasn't ever life"?
Ken Farley: This is Jezero Crater, where Perseverance landed. It's the most habitable period on Mars and the most habitable area we know of. This is it, this is all we know about Mars. Even if life isn't found here, we can worry that it might not exist elsewhere.
Perseverance had not strayed far from the landing site when its Telescopic Camera spotted large boulders that Ken Farley, a scientist, didn't expect.
Anderson Cooper: This has been a surprise to you.
Ken Farley: Yes.
Anderson Cooper: What did those boulders tell us?
Ken Farley: A flood is the most plausible interpretation. Fast flowing water is not possible in the middle of a lake. A river has fast flowing water. This is what it means: there was a river capable of carrying boulders this large.
Anderson Cooper: What's the point? Anderson Cooper: So what?
Ken Farley: Yes. Exactly.
After a demonstration of its flying abilities for 30 days, Ingenuity was supposed to be left behind and Perseverance would take their place. NASA officials decided to keep them together for longer in order to study how helicopters and rovers might interact in the future.
Perseverance can travel a mere tenth of one mile per hour, which is the fastest it was built to go. According to Mimi Aung, project manager, Ingenuity has been able to travel 120 times faster.
Mimi Aung: A flying vehicle for space exploration, with an aerial vehicle added to it, will change the game.
Anderson Cooper: It liberates you in a certain way
Mimi Aung (Yes, absolutely). A flying vehicle, or a rotorcraft, would enable us to reach places that we cannot access today. This includes sites with steep cliffs and deep crevices.
Perseverance had explored the Jezero Crater floor and reached what is believed to be the remains of an ancient river delta. This delta was where microorganisms should have thrived billions of years back.
The robotic arm of the rover can collect 40 core samples from rock. These will be sealed in tubes and left on Mars' surface. NASA will send another mission to Mars in order to recover the tubes and return them to Earth. Ken Farley said that scientists who are examining the samples could be faced with a perplexing new question in ten years.
Ken Farley: What is life like if it's not what you think? It's something we have never done before.
Anderson Cooper: "Is it possible to imagine a life other than what we have?"
Ken Farley: Yes, it's possible. That's what I believe is the point of all this: We have to begin conceiving life as it is.
Perseverance will continue to make tracks on Mars for many years if everything goes according to plan. We leave you with the sounds of Perseverance as it slowly navigates across the vast, lonely expanses Mars.
NASA and the European Space Agency reached an agreement earlier this year to send three new spacecraft on Mars in 2027/28. They would retrieve samples Perseverance has collected on Mars and return them to Earth.
Andy Court produced the film. Associate producer, Evie Salomon. Broadcast associate, Annabelle Hanflig. Richard Buddenhagen edited.
