NASA hit a snag final 12 months when the Ingenuity Mars helicopter crashed on the Crimson Planet. The area company concluded that the crash was brought on by the car’s lack of ability to discern flat floor from featureless sand dunes. To keep away from such a hiccup sooner or later, a staff of NASA scientists lately descended upon Demise Valley, California, to courageous the warmth and take a look at a staff of analysis drones over related featureless areas.
“Ingenuity was designed to fly over well-textured terrain, estimating its movement by visible options on the bottom,” mentioned Roland Brockers, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory drone pilot and researcher. “However finally it needed to cross over blander areas the place this turned exhausting. We would like future automobiles to be extra versatile and never have to fret about flying over difficult areas like these sand dunes.”
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It is not the primary time NASA has taken a discipline journey to the most popular place on Earth. The company has used Demise Valley because the Nineteen Seventies to check varied applied sciences in preparation for journeys to Mars. This time round, the staff was testing Extended Robust Aerial Autonomy software program, an autonomous flight system designed to deal with a higher vary of terrains on Mars. This may forestall one other Ingenuity-style incident involving future explorers.
The staff needed to endure temperatures that reached a most of round 113 levels Fahrenheit, with solely a small pop-up tent to defend them from the extraordinary solar and warmth. Whereas NASA has used Demise Valley for testing for many years, the JPL staff that went in 2025 was solely the third staff ever to acquire a license to fly analysis drones at Demise Valley.
Demise Valley officers had been solely too glad to accommodate the researchers.
“It is a highly effective reminder that the park is protected not only for its scenic magnificence, however as a dwelling laboratory that actively helps us perceive desert environments,” mentioned Demise Valley Nationwide Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds.
JPL researchers huddled beneath tents to remain cool in Demise Valley’s blazing scorching temperatures whereas they examined drones.
Helpful findings
All of this testing passed off in April and September, so NASA has had a while to overview the information and decide what labored. In response to the company, the findings confirmed that totally different digicam filters had been efficient for varied varieties of terrain, and the improved algorithms enabled drones to descend and land extra safely.
Along with Demise Valley, the staff additionally took their drones to the Dumont Dunes space of the Mojave Desert, an space famend for its huge sand dunes, that are a preferred spot for off-road leisure automobiles, sandboarding and sand sledding. It is also famous for its number of dune formations, offering NASA’s JPL staff with extra information to check in opposition to.
There are at the moment no named missions which might be set to ship a helicopter again to Mars, however NASA and the European Area Company are growing two mini-Ingenuity helicopters which will in the future assist return all of the samples dutifully collected by the Perseverance Mars rover on its journeys throughout Mars. These helicopters will undoubtedly make the most of the expertise that was examined and improved throughout NASA’s discipline journey to Demise Valley.
