One challenge of Mars exploration is something very small: dust. Now, researchers have used data from Ingenuity to understand more about how dust moves on Mars.
One of the big challenges of Mars exploration is something very small: dust. Fine dust covers much of the martian surface, and high winds and low gravity mean the dust is easily whipped up off the surface, covering solar panels and gumming up components. The Ingenuity helicopter has had its own problems with dust on its solar panels, limiting the amount of power it could draw from the sun.
Researchers from the Stevens Institute of Technology, the Space Science Institute, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory took data from Ingenuity’s flights to observe how dust moved around from the surface and into the air when the helicopter took off, hovered, maneuvered, and landed.
The researchers also looked at footage of the helicopter that was captured by the Perseverance rover. This helped them model how much dust was kicked up, and measure both the mass and size of dust clouds. The results showed that each time Ingenuity flies, it kicks up around four pounds of dust — equivalent to around one thousandth of its own mass. This is much more than a helicopter on Earth would stir up, because there are so many different factors to consider on another planet.
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