Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Project Manager MiMi Aung

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

The tiny Mars Helicopter Ingenuity has flown into our hearts. Project manager MiMi Aung and her team may have made it look easy, but Aung explains why it was anything but. Bruce Betts has tips for viewing the upcoming total lunar eclipse. Planetary Radio t-shirts are back as prizes in the space trivia contest! And we’ve got space headlines from The Downlink, our weekly newsletter. Discover more at https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/mimi-aung-ingenuity-updateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Mars Helicopters Mimion, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome, I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. Many thought it couldn't be done, but the team at the Jet Propulsion Lab and their partners kept at it for years. You've seen the result. As we published this week's episode, Ingenuity has completed five flights on the Red Planet, each of them more challenging than the last.

Mimi will tell us about the many obstacles they had to overcome to achieve this success, along with what she hopes will come next. Want to win a snazzy Planetary Radio t-shirt? Your chance has finally returned with this week's What's Up segment. Bruce Betts also has pointers for viewing the upcoming total lunar eclipse. You may still have time to register for the first Mars Innovation Forum from our friends at Explore Mars. I'll be there to moderate a session about building and creating the stuff

humans will someday need out there on Fourth Rock. Details are at exploremars.org. Bye-bye, Bennu! Osiris-Rex captured one last image of the asteroid it has been orbiting as the spacecraft began its journey back to Earth, carrying a precious cargo of asteroid material. The snapshot leads the May 14th edition of The Down Lake, where you can also learn about the two-year trip ahead.

You probably know that China's Long March 5B rocket, the one that carried the first segment of its new space station to low Earth orbit, came down safely in the Indian Ocean. But did you see MSNBC's Rachel Maddow talk with me about this uncontrolled deorbit? There's a link to my appearance at planetary.org slash downlink. Lastly, there's this also in the downlink. Hear that hum over the Martian wind? That's the sound of Ingenuity's rotor spinning furiously at about 2,500 RPM.

The recording was made by the Perseverance rover during the helicopter's fourth flight on April 30th. No one was prouder or happier to hear that whir than Mars Helicopter Project Manager Mimi Ong. She joined me online not long after Ingenuity's fifth flight for the enthusiastic conversation you're about to hear. Mimi, welcome back to Planetary Radio. Congratulations to you and the entire Ingenuity team on the magnificent success of this little flying machine. We are all blown away out here. And really, thanks for coming back. Thank you. Thank you for cheering us on. We definitely do that. Can you believe the attention that the Mars helicopter has been generating for weeks now? Yes, it's humbling and it's energizing and it's just amazing support. So really, really grateful for that.

Thank you. It is such a pleasure. It really is inspiring. And it's that power to inspire that I think we may talk about toward the end of this conversation. I got something to play for you if I can bring it up here. You already told me you saw the movie The Martian, right? And you noticed the one big fudge that Andy Weir, the author, had to put into the story, right? Yes, yes.

With the air blowing the hub over, yes. Atmosphere pushing the hub over, yes, with the air blowing the hub over, yes. Atmosphere pushing the hub over, yes. I bet you only wish that there was that much air on Mars. It's atmosphere, and I just misspoke with air. Oh, no, I understand. So sorry, yeah. Atmosphere is certainly appropriate. Andy was my guest on the show.

He came back on the show about two weeks ago to talk about his new book. I want to play this little clip for you from that interview. Here goes. my guest on the show. He came back on the show about two weeks ago to talk about his new book. I want to play this little clip for you from that interview. Here goes. I hope this works. Don't you think having a little drone to play with might've helped Mark Watney pass the time? Probably would have. Yeah, probably would have. He's like, this is fun. I'm not accomplishing anything. You know, if you'd asked me a few years ago, hey, what do you think about a helicopter on Mars? I would have said, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Because Mars has like less than 1% of our atmosphere. Those blades are going to be going absurdly fast. It's going to have to weigh like nothing. And well, they did it. And it works. So to paraphrase the great Jeff Goldblum,

To paraphrase the great Jeff Goldblum, JPL finds a way. JPL, uh, uh, uh, finds a way. I could say there was a lot of ingenuity in the design of that. Yeah, one might. That's a fun conversation. It really was fun. You know, we like to talk real space with Andy as well, because he is maybe the biggest fan in the world of JPL and space exploration. So I thought you might enjoy that.

By the way, nice work on 60 Minutes a few days ago. I thought Anderson Cooper did great work on that story about ingenuity and about perseverance. Absolutely, yes. You know, really understanding that it is challenging. It really was in the beginning. Consider, you know, a lot of people thought it would not be possible, right? It's a fair skepticism because it is, you know, counterintuitive. The atmosphere there is so thin. And how can you possibly fly? So absolutely. So really having come a long ways, you know, systematically, one step at a time, incrementally proving lift and then controlled flight,

time incrementally proving lift and then controlled flight and then going on to build this 1.8 kilogram vehicle that was the engineering challenge that followed the aerodynamics challenge and then really how do you accommodate it on perseverance you know where that's where the perseverance rover team the ingenuity team really had to work together because a mars helicopter is not a standard payload, extremely challenging, especially as a late-coming payload to be integrated. So we worked well together. And then we continued on working together, the ingenuity team and the rover operations team, to really operate this helicopter, which had to be maintained every couple of weeks

and through the whole cruise phase to maintain our batteries health and to keep monitoring. And then of course, after landing the surface team, really, I like to use the word coddled, spoiled us, really helped us, you know, look after, maintain the helicopter until the deployment and the Perseverance rover, Maas helicopter delivery system that the rover team worked with Lockheed Martin, you know, really did a great job of, you know, really accommodating and deploying the helicopter to the surface. Prior to the deployment, when people asked me, you know, what is your assessment probability of success? And I used to like to say, and I really believed it, that if Ingenuity lands on its feet in the condition that we sent it off, you know, sent it off to the rover to be taken to Mars and deployed, chances are very good because, you know, we've the condition that we sent it off. And second is, of course, a lot of the parts, you know, the commercial off-the-shelf parts

and the special parts that we had to adapt for space use. If those survive, it should work well. And all of that has come true. So this Mars helicopter delivery system on the rover delivered the ingenuity exactly the way we deliver to the rover. And then the helicopter has been acting exactly the way we've seen it tested on Earth. So it's been amazing. I want to encourage everybody who's listening, go to the Mars Helicopter

Ingenuity Project website. Among the videos there, of course, the flights that blow us all away, but there is this great video showing the deployment on Earth as it was being tested at JPL, the deployment on Earth as it was being tested at JPL, showing you the steps that Perseverance and Ingenuity had to go through to do what Mimi was just talking about, to be down on its own four feet on the surface. It is just amazing. If you love mechanical stuff, it is a marvel to watch. You know, absolutely. And when time came to integrate the two sides, right, the rover and the helicopter, both sides really had to innovate.

Yes. So the rover on their side, making the room and the space, you know, on the belly pan and getting a little bit of space above. And like you said, a mechanical engineering marvel. engineering marvel and then on the helicopter side JPL partnered closely with AeroVarmint and AeroVarmint had delivered the rotor system as well as the landing gear and and the solar panel substrate but the landing gear that was all built on Ingenuity already just the hinge that had to be put on late in the game that was swapped out the scheme that we came up with to put on the rover required the legs to be stretched out and pulled up and held for many, many months until it was deployed. And then on deployment, after all that time of being stretched, it had to snap into place like legs. So even that was an add-on. And then on the rotor system, AeroVarman put on the

blade pitch restraint system that also had to be added on. Very clever design so that the blades wouldn't be spinning freely while it was still under the rover. So a lot of late innovations, even beyond the initial innovation of the helicopter itself. I am so glad that you mentioned AeroVironment, one of your partners on this project, because I have been a big fan of that company since way back when its founder, Paul McCready, was still around. They really seem to have been great partners on this. And they were also in that 60 Minutes story that I mentioned. Yes, absolutely. So AeroVironment, JPL, and the Ames, Langley, NASA Langley, and then Qualcomm, Solero.

We've partnered very, very well together. And then Air Environment has been partners, in fact, all the way in the early days with Dr. Bob Bellarm, our chief engineer, the innovator of the whole design. And he's the one that always believed from the beginning and got all of us to drink the Kool-Aid. believe from the beginning and got all of us to drink the Kool-Aid. But even from the early days of picking up the research and going back to repeat the test, from those early days, Bob and Ervarman reconnected together, and then we grew from there. So absolutely pure, pure technical partnership between the NASA centers and the industry. And it had to be partnered in a way without boundaries, primarily driven by this 1.8 kilograms. And it's lovely,

right? When you cannot have boundaries or else we're not going to fly, you know, you learn to drop everything and it's a really highly integrated system. Please give your colleague, Bob, our regards and congratulations as well. He was also a guest on the show. The last time you and I talked, testing was still underway. I know you've talked about this many times, but could you address once again what had to be done, how this project evolved? this project evolved, were there doubts early on that maybe the technology could reach the level that would be required if you wanted to fly across Mars? You asked for a long story. Be careful. I can keep talking forever.

We got time. I just can't stop talking about it. So our team really takes pride in, I think we were really systematic about it in a really streamlined way. The very first question is, you know, what everybody says, really, like, how can you even lift, you know, in this very thin atmosphere? In the beginning, there were lift tests, you know, tests that were done with just a rotor system in a chamber with, you know, seven, eight tor pressure in a chamber. And you see this rotor just lifting with guided rails,

right? So that was kind of traditional way. So the next step really was the question of now, can we demonstrate lift without any guide rails? Just see how does a vehicle lift? So that's when the little one third scale vehicle was taken into now a very large, the R25 foot space simulator chamber at JPL. Before that, we were in the more of a 10-foot chamber environment. So this little one-third vehicle scale was taken to the 25-foot chamber in collaboration, again, JPL and AeroVironment. And in fact, that one-third scale vehicle, Matt Keenan from AeroVironment was joysticking it from the outside right of the chamber because you can't be in the chamber there's not enough you know air in there right yeah it wouldn't be healthy

no and in fact uh there was you know we had a very healthy debate about how long should we run this demo but want to make sure it was 20 30 second make sure you know it's long enough so that we're stably and others are like well well, it should be more like 20 seconds, no more. And, you know, because it could get hot, heavy, heavy arguments. Well, what happens? We took it there. Surprise. The vehicle definitely lifted, right? About 8,000 RPM, some high RPM, right? Because it was only one third scale, a very high RPM and that the predictive RPM, it lifted. But it turned out, we learned during that experiment, the human response is so slow, and the dynamics are so fast that it just, you know, you couldn't control. A human outside just, no matter how good, wasn't fast enough to do the control. That was the first experiment that really said, ah, the dynamics at Mars are

very different. We were then challenged by our sponsor, you know, our NASA headquarters, ah, the dynamics at Mars are very different. We were then challenged by our sponsor, you know, our NASA headquarters, say, now show us that you really can fly in a controlled way, right? Not just lift, show us you can fly in a controlled way. And that's when we really went into hardcore analysis, fundamental analysis and simulation. We turn the corner from experimentation to really heavy modeling and analysis coupled with testing. And that's when we really engage really closely within NASA ARMDs. You know, Susan Gordon is my counterpart there. She's a program manager for the NASA ARMDs, the Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology Program, which has all the NASA folks from the rotorcraft community of NASA. We met her and her team

at Ames, actually. We all gathered at Ames. Susan's from GLAN. But at Ames, we met because there's a large contingent of the rotorcraft system community there. We had a first meeting. a large contingent of the rotorcraft system community there. We had a first meeting. We really went into modeling the blade now, the full-scale blade, really modeling it in partial pieces, about 32 pieces per blade, and really modeling the lift and the drag, the aerodynamic model, the lift and the drag of all of those, integrating those individual lift and drag pieces, integrate them into blade, and then modeling what the dynamic of the vehicle would be when you spin that blade, you know, and you're optimizing this with a Wayne Johnson of Ames, Larry Young, you know, those are the experts in the rotor crowd. They really worked with us and optimize the blade as

much as possible and model that. And taking that lift and the drag and the resulting dynamics of the system, then from JPL, the flight controls, flight guidance, navigation, and control leads. Havard Grip, our chief pilot now, he really then worked with Ames and Langley, took the dynamics, and then put a control system around that and say, look, for this kind of dynamics,

we need this kind of sensing, the controls has to be this fast, and the rotor system would have to have this much response. Otherwise, you know, we just can't close the loop. And so that kind of closed loop control modeling was put on top of the dynamics model. And then the specifications were issued about, okay, now, you know, for example, air environment building the rotor system, blades need to be this stiff. It needs to respond that fast. The fuselage, you know, with all the power electronics and the computers that JPL was building, here are the sensors, you know, they have to have this sample rate. And then, by the way, the motor control for the rotor motor control, those algorithms were coupled with JPL advanced algorithms, right,

from our JPL fellow, Ted Koff, actually personally designed the controls algorithms with Ryan Stern, who put them on the FPGA. I mean, a lot of that, we base them now, this phase, based on simulations and the specifications that came out of it. So from there, we went on to build this risk reduction vehicle. That was that May 31st, 2016. I'll never forget that date where we really put the, now the full scale rotor system coupled with the onboard IMU, the inertial measurement units on board

and a camera-based sensing system with a long lightweight tether with computers and power under the chamber. And in a closed-loop fashion, controlled by a computer, we had our first autonomous flight. At that point, remember the people who were skeptical in the beginning? I think we won everybody over, except the next step, which is, this is amazing. It is possible to fly at Mars, but can we really build now a full-up helicopter under 1.8 kilograms? So you can get the sense, right?

We went from the prototype to the risk reduction vehicle, went from it's impossible to it's possible. But we never get to celebrate our rest because now can we build it under 1.8 kilograms and in time before Perseverance gets launched? Because they're going to leave with or without us. So the next phase then, the testing became the engineering development model. Once we built the whole system, now it has to have this solar panel, solar cells, telecom system, all of the avionics, the power, the battery, you know, all the sensors, the thermal system, all the materials and processes had to be compliant for launch. All that had to be built under 1.8 kilograms. And we did it. You sure did. What a fascinating narrative you've just taken us through. So many questions come up

for me. I suspect that one of the biggest parts of your job was being the person at the center of all this, integrating the work of all these wonderful experts and getting them all to come together in that little tiny package. Yes, absolutely. And it's been an honor and it's been exhilarating and really fun because it really is a crossroads of engineering and technical challenge, but there is also programmatic challenge, you know, in terms of time, you know, and also technology demonstration, you know, it's a lower budget, right? And so really it is a crossroad of technical and programmatic. And in the technical side, I mean, we all come from different backgrounds, right? For me, my personally, I'm, you know, signal processing communications and closed loop control. So I tend to look at all systems as closed loop control systems, right? The

loop must close and how well can you sense and control, but that's just one discipline, right? But you realize bringing something like this together as a team, we had to respect every discipline, being in the crossroads of all of that, each of us, and I definitely had to myself to really appreciate where is each discipline getting stuck to get us to the finish line. So, you know, a great example is when we had to trade when we had we needed more energy for thermal. So thermal, well, you know, we can make this solar panel bigger, the batteries bigger, but then you have more mass. But Bob's job, chief engineer's job was like absolutely trading all of that from the project manager perspective. Also, it really is also really following and participating with the trades because there is a technical absolute solution trade.

But then there is also time. Right? So we can only trade so long. And at some point we have to also say, okay, this is good and we need to move forward. So in this case, you know, we had a solar panel that's just large enough and the power system that's large enough, but we had to stop trading once we could close the design for the summer timeframe of Mars. And we didn't continue on to optimize it further so that it could last through the winters. You know, that was the kind of decisions that would come, right? So really the balancing between the technical optimization versus there's also time. Otherwise, you know, you can get better than this. You can have a better vehicle, but you're not going to catch the ride. You're going to miss your ride, yeah. Something that did not occur to me before you

were telling this story, is it possible that advances made in the development of the helicopter are going to spin off, maybe already have, into earthbound technologies? I'm thinking of, here you design this incredibly light rotor designed to work in 1% of earth atmosphere. Is that something that people are saying, I can use that to do so-and-so? This is a great question for Susan Gordon. I really would like to recommend you invite Susan Gordon from GLAN, who is running the Directorate's Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology Program. It is a very aero world advancement, and I'm not very knowledgeable, as I tend to be on the space side, in the space exploration side.

I made a note of it, and maybe I'll contact her if I have a chance. Five flights completed now, as we speak. I mean, by the time people hear this, you may have completed six. And we'll ask you what's coming up in a moment. But I just wonder, how is ingenuity holding up? You're already have more than met your goals, right? Ingenuity has been impressive. I have to tell you, just impressive. I think we're all speechless. tell you, just impressive. I think we're all speechless. The reason is, right, we have been really modeling, thinking what Mars is like, right? I mean, really deeply thinking, reflecting them in the model, starting from the atmospheric models to thermal models and the environmental models for launch, you know, for landing, but then really also surviving the night and looking at the energy

models. And then on top of it, do we have enough energy to fly? And then all the frequencies on the vehicle, all the vibrations. And I mean, every area you can think of, it's been highly interdisciplinary. So as we were building and testing the vehicle, it hasn't been just about flying. It really is about as you spin up, what are things happening? You know, how is it taking off? And then what are the currents? What are the voltages?

What are the temperatures, right? And even on the days that you're not flying, the telecommunication link. And do we have enough energy to survive the night? That was one of the biggest worries of our team, right, after deployment. Does it survive the first night? Well, it looks like everybody in that tiny little 1.8 kilograms, everybody had managed to tuck in a lot of margins up their sleeves, I have to tell you. That's so typical of you people at JPL,

rovers run forever and helicopters that just keep on flying. I know, but you know, given how tight we were in mass and just every watt hour that mattered, it has been amazing. I mean, starting all the way from the survival of the first night, it was the thermal model. The thermal team has been amazing, tuning the thermal since the chamber test on Earth and chamber test on the rover still on the next scale on Earth. And even calibrating it up in space during cruise and after landing on the rover. The thermal folks have been updating their models. And now, like when you look at the predicted range of where the temperature should be versus where the dots of actual measurement, they're right on now, you know, just nailing the temperatures. And then how much energy they need has been modeled so well now.

And we're coming out of the night's night with very good, healthy state of charge. And we are back over 90, 92, 93, higher state of charge by midday, which is, you know, the peak was predicted to be maybe to take till 2 p.m. You know, local Marsden center time. Well, we are, you know, by noon or so, we're well in the 90s percent state of charge. We had gone from, oh, we better wait, you know, until late enough to fly the energy to, wow, decent middle of the day. We can fly any time to, if you look at the temperature plots, right, and the energy plot, the voltages and the currents, there's Yacoub Karras, who's been monitoring and watching the voltages and the servo currents all the time. And he's like,

exactly the way we have always seen it, you know, the whole time we were testing, you know, if you really kind of look at it. So, and of course, if you talk to Havard and you see the flight trajectory, we are controlling the altitude to a centimeter when we're up at five meter flight, you know, and the heading, you know, to one and a half degrees, you know, after we're landing, it's just been phenomenal. So I guess Ingenuity had been ready for its training wheels have been taken up long before we were ever ready to let it go. I mean, and hopefully you saw, right, especially the flight three, when the first time Ingenuity actually flew out of the Mastcam-Z field of view,

that was incredible. I mean, the poor thing has been trapped in our chamber or this little area that we've been letting it fly, and it's finally like, I'm flying, you know, and so it's been impressive, really impressive. I don't know about you, but on that flight, when it flew out of the frame, it was like, oh my God, oh my God, please come back, please come back. And of course it did. So I, by that time you knew, right? Yeah. My, my feeling was, you know, for me personally,

it was like, wow, it's finally getting to fly the distances that it was designed to. That's what I felt. I felt really happy that it's because it's, you know, and so far, I mean, the last trip was, I mean, the flight forward 270 meters, you know, round trip. And so, yeah, it's designed to fly hundreds of meters. And so I just feel very happy that it's finally flying the distances it's designed to. Mimi Ong and I will be right back. Still ahead is our conversation about what's to come now that we know powered flight on Mars is possible. Stay with us.

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ready to award our next round of grants. We anticipate a stack of worthy requests from talented astronomers around the world. You can become part of this mission with a gift in any amount. Visit planetary.org slash NEO, and when you give today, your contribution will be matched up to $25,000, thanks to a society member who cares deeply about planetary defense. Together, we can defend Earth. Join the search at planetary.org slash Neo today. We're just trying to save the world. So what's next? You've got more flights now planned, right? And in fact, Perseverance is sticking around to monitor these to help out for a little bit longer than was originally planned. Yes. So next, we have our technology

demonstration 100% batch. So we're very proud. So technology demonstration is complete. NASA has given us 30 days, the new 30 days, to do operational demonstration. So now we really go into the regime of what operational regime of having a rotorcraft on Mars, along with a rover, it is about looking at cases of, you know, scouting or aerial observations of sites, you know, that are not reachable by rovers, or scouting ahead of, you know, a helicopter or, you know, that are not reachable by rovers or scouting ahead of, you know, a helicopter or, you know, future rovers or from aerial vantage point, making 3D stereo products, you know, that we can take from by taking images from above, you know, as opposed to from a rover that we traditionally do. So we're looking at these kinds of products. And so we are working

with that. The big change is that Perseverance has now gone back to their primary science. I mean, Perseverance has an extremely important science project, and we've been really lucky to get all of their attention for the month of Ingenuity. So now the difference is we're working wherever we can interleave our operational demonstration. And then the second is we are also getting guidance from Perseverance team, the operational and the science folks on suggestions on products and operational scenarios that will be useful for future missions. Because, you know, since the Perseverance team is really hands onon, you know, they have the really firsthand insight and foresight into, hey, when we build the next generation of missions, right, these are the kinds of operational scenarios and products that would really complement science that's being performed

by a rover. So it's a very exciting phase. I wonder, on behalf of a lot of people, I bet, has there been consideration of having ingenuity tag along as Perseverance heads out across Jezero Crater? Or would that just be too much of a distraction from the science that Perseverance has to do? I think it will fall in the letter. Ken Farley is the project scientist and he and his, you know, very global extensive team have really carefully designed the science. That design doesn't include the use of, you know, ingenuity for that. And so, yeah, no, it would be really the cooperation, the collaboration that we're doing now is really with our eye together towards future science missions. That's one. And then second, as we were talking earlier,

ingenuity can only last really the spring and the summer. And then when it gets too cold, ingenuity is not sized enough as a tech demo. Now, future helicopters, different story, will be able to last a long time. But ingenuity the way it's built, you know, cannot last once the cold temperatures start to come in. Let me follow up on that. You talk about future helicopters. Is there, are you or others already taking what's been learned and starting to think

about more ambitious flying machines for the red planet? And I wonder now, if next time a rover goes to Mars, or someday humans, do you have any doubt that they're going to have Rotocraft along with them? Well, the second question, you know, future Rotocraft on future missions? I certainly hope so. But that's a great question for Dr. Sabukin and, you know, Dr. Laurie Glaze. And I think, you know, everybody's very excited and I'll leave it there. But definitely, you know, the Science Mission Directorate having aerial vehicles complementary to, you know, rovers on the surface and, of course, complementary to spacecraft continuing to be on orbit. So definitely, I think adding the aerial dimension is just opening up a whole new regime. In terms of now research and technology development, what's the next generation? Yes, there are a lot of lot of again from the research and technology

development side a lot of excitement about now next generation uh rotorcraft so a couple that i'm aware of are for example um jpl partnering with ames and um aerovarment uh looking at you know the scaling you know we are only a 1.2 meter diameter rotor system right now, right? So scaling up to three, three and a half meters diameter rotor system, talking about 15 kilogram kind of a vehicle carrying a couple of kilogram, one and a half, two kilogram payloads. Then it becomes a very serious exploration system. Those activities are definitely, the collaboration is continuing in the pushing the research and technology venue. Yeah, we have a great running start. If you extrapolate that scalability out, can you or has anybody else imagined a day when a rotorcraft on Mars could maybe carry a human? That's an awfully big jump, I know. Yeah, the current analysis show we cannot go that far on Mars. Other planetary targets, yes, you know, Titan, of course Venus,

of course has an environment, there is thick atmosphere, but at Mars the atmosphere is too thin, really. So the limits of about three and a half meter diameter, after that the dynamics, the floppiness of the blades, all of that start to come in and then you're starting to fight with the mass constraints. So really the vision for Mars is effective aerial vehicle to really get to places you can get to and to really, you know, partner with science exploration and human exploration. So how'd you know I was going to take you to Titan next? Because I know Elizabeth Turtle, Zippy Turtle, and the Dragonfly Project,

and the folks at APL who are working on it, other side of the country, that they've been talking to you and your people, right? Because that's going to be a rotocraft flying above a very different world. This is exciting. Exciting, right? So my dream is for rotocrafts to become a norm, right? When you go to a planet with atmosphere, any atmosphere, we should have a flying APL space sector at the Applied Physics Lab that's developing Dragonfly, was our independent review board chair throughout the lifetime of our development. So yes, we definitely are happy to also help, especially, I think the worlds will start to cross over even more as they go into the integration and test and

verification and validation. Because thinking of how do you test a rotorcraft, something that has to fly in a totally different atmosphere than on Earth, how to set that up becomes very tricky. And then the second one is how do you operate? We don't overlap in terms of this very lightweight and very thin atmosphere, you know, this unique Mach number and Reynolds number pair that we have on Mars, right? In terms of atmosphere, we don't intersect in that regime, but we are going to, we have a lot to offer that we will be very happy to share. How do you test offer that we will be very happy to share. How do you test verification, validation, and operate? So yes, we absolutely, Dragonfly is going to come along and then even a further step to becoming a flying, rotocrop being a norm. I can't wait to see that next flying machine, flying above that

wild world of Titan as well. I'm going to come back to where we started, and that is the inspiration that Ingenuity has provided, maybe especially for young people. How important is that part of this project to you? I mean, you've proven machines can fly, rotorcraft can fly on Mars, but you look at the world reaction, and there are kids out there right now

who are just blown away. And who knows, maybe deciding that they want to do something like this for a career. They are inspiring me because I think it really is because it is unexpected. Most of us tend to be very humble and we have our heads down and we like to, you know, make things work. And taking on the Mars helicopter, which was considered almost impossible, that almost challenged us to work like crazy. We all worked a lot. Our team worked an incredible amount, really driven by this. No, no, you know, we believe it's possible based on the algorithms and, you know, seeing that, you know, where the challenges are.

And, yes, it's not easy, but there was no way we were going to be told that it was impossible until we absolutely couldn't do it. Right. And so at least personally, when you kind of say, you know, we are our team is inspiring everybody. I feel very humble and I'm inspired by that. And I'm inspired by the, I guess I'm really inspired by the public that really has the foresight and also the instinct and the insight to really see that this was an accomplishment. So I just feel very grateful and honored to be even said that we're inspiring everyone. I do want to mention there are great ways for kids to get involved on the Mars Helicopter website, including you can make your own paper helicopter. I'm even more impressed by this Mars Helicopter video game, where apparently kids, or big kids like me, can actually do coding

and kind of become a Mars Helicopter pilot, at least on their own screen, their virtual helicopter, that they can run at home. This is really cool stuff. It is. And, you know, one of my colleagues from another project, a Venus activity, he actually texted me like his young daughter did a video game. It's just really impressive, you know. So, yes, just go for it, everyone. You know, I guess what I want to say to the new generation is our team just did a pathfinder, okay? It's just a proof of concept. It is not the ultimate flying machine, but it is something for your generation

to really take it to the next step, you know, make it bigger and fly further and longer and, you know, do more capable things. And just one example, if we have a bad landing, you know, on ingenuity, it would be the end of the mission. Well, your next generation, you need to put a self-writing system, but it has to be very lightweight. So it's not like you can just tag on a self-writing system. It's got to be a very clever, lightweight system. Many are the inventions that have to follow. So I really leave it to your generation. You got to make it much greater than we are just a start.

We're just a pathfinder. So please take it all the way. I hope we've got young people out there listening right now who will take you up on that challenge as soon as they can. Not that you're done with ingenuity, but Mimi, what's next? What's ahead for you? Oh, there are a lot of options. You know, space exploration is, you know, a lot of opportunities. For example, right now I've been involved in a Venus proposal. It's called Veritas. It's a mission to look at a full global observation of Venus, the surface and the interior of Venus. And Venus holds so many answers as to the rocky planets.

Why did Venus go the way Venus went? And Earth evolved into a habitable planet. And so what is the mechanics of rocky planet evolutions? And why do two planets that start in a similar way go in two different ways? And then ultimately, I'm really motivated by what makes a planet habitable. There are so many now exoplanets that we are aware of compared to 20 years ago. Remember, it was a small number. Now we know so many exoplanets that we have, we are aware of compared to 20 years ago. Remember, it was, you know, a small number. Now we know so many exoplanets. Well, which of those exoplanets are habitable? And, you know, Venus holds a lot of answers. So, you know, that's, that's an example, NASA, JPL,

there are a lot of, you know, we finish one challenging project, and then we get rewarded by going on to, you know, other fun projects. So I want to keep, I really want to keep pushing the state of the art of space exploration. That's my, always, always my goal. I just want to be state of the art. Mimi, it is wonderful to hear that you're going to be staying out there on the frontier. I hope that you and the team have taken a little bit of time recently to celebrate this marvelous success of the Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, and best of continued success

with the flights that are still left to us before Perseverance moves on, looking for evidence of past life on that red planet. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for cheering us on. Yes, we do make, you know, I don't know, I'm still being recorded. But I must say, when you said what's next for you, the first thing that came to my mind

is I get to take a few, some days of vacation is what I'm trying to plan. But I didn't want to say that. Yes, you know, just a short break. It'll be fun. It'll be really nice to rest. And then there is, yeah, it's more to do. Absolutely. Take that vacation.

Bon voyage. You might want to fly in a helicopter sometime. Thank you so much, Mimi. As it has been in the past, it was an absolute joy to talk with you. And best of continued success. Thank you. It's good to see you again. Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Project Manager Mimi Ong. Here comes Bruce Betts in What's Up. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. We are back with the Chief Scientist of the Planetary Society.

I got something for you right up front here from Christoph Hertel in Norway, who says, thanks for the show. I can't follow Bruce's night sky advice because it won't be dark here for the next three months. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I'll work on that. But I will point out that the sun is up in Norway, and you can check it out at all times of day. Even in Norway, don't stare at the sun without proper filters. But yeah, check out that sun. They're really smart in Norway.

I'm sure that they would not stare at the sun. But it's a good reminder. I'm legally obligated to say that. That's good, actually. What else is happening for those of us who aren't stuck up there near the Arctic or the Antarctic for that? I guess the Antarctic, they're doing well right now with stars. Little brisk, a little chilly out. Well, I want to mention something not night sky or maybe night sky related, which is to remind people that our new grants program pre-proposals

are due May 26. That's the STEP grants, science and technology empowered by the public. And if you think you've got a good idea, a good project and can justify it in all the right ways, go ahead and check out planetary.org slash step grants. One word, step grants. Anybody can apply for these? Anyone can apply. Yes, it's a two-step process. We'll take pre-proposals due May 26th.

And then based upon those, we will invite a select few to do full proposals. It's got a tie to our core enterprises. So exploring space, finding life, defending earth from things like asteroids. So it has to fit into that category, but anyone can apply. But obviously we're looking for things that not only fit, but that are credible and will do something good in leaping forward in science and technology in those areas. Good luck to any of you who decide to take on this challenge. And I hope that some of you planetary radio listeners will, and that someday you'll be

on the show talking about what you accomplished with your first ever STEP grant. Nice vision. Nice guys. So sorry, Norway. Actually, sorry, half the world, because the first thing I'm going to talk about is the total lunar eclipse that is coming up on May 26th. And it is for areas that are around the Pacific Ocean. So the Western North America, South America, Australia, Pacific Islands,

Japan, China, etc. You can check this out if you're on the western side of the Pacific. It'll be in the evening. And if you're on the eastern side of the Pacific, it'll be in the pre-dawn in the morning. And it'll be a relatively short for a lunar eclipse total totality. It'll be about 15 minutes because the moon is passing through kind of one edge of the Earth's shadow. It will probably be reddish, but it depends on the atmosphere because of the red light getting refracted through the Earth's atmosphere, making it through the blue light scattering away. through the Earth's atmosphere, making it through the blue light scattering away. And if you're watching the news, you will see it referred to as a super blood flower moon. I guess flower kind of...

Super blood flower moon. Flower moon is a traditional name derived from the Native American Algonquin tribe for the full moon in May. Blood moon is what they like to call it because it turns red. It is a super moon, which is when the moon is at full moon is closer to earth in its elliptical orbit. So it will be slightly larger than your run of the mill average non super blood flower moon. And there are also planets up, unless you're in Norway, in which case you can check out Jupiter looking super bright over in the east, Saturn to its upper right, and in the evening sky, very low in the west,

you've got super bright Venus, very low, and above that, Mercury and Mars up in the southwest in the early evening. Okay, we move on to this week in space history. Also a very busy week in space history. A few highlights. 1961, 60 years ago, John F. Kennedy gave the we should land on the moon speech that led to the Apollo program. Eight years later, in 1969, Apollo 10 got to within about 16 kilometers of the lunar surface. It did a dry run without landing. But wait, don't order yet. 2008, Phoenix lander landed on Mars

in the polar region. In 2010, Icarus was launched, which became the first solar sail mission, a precursor to light sail and our first solar sail mission in a tiny spacecraft. It's a lot. There's so much. But I'll be short in the next segment. Random space fact.

On average. No, wait, wait. You can't just go on like that. I'm not even sure I can apply the right level of reverb to that. You got to hear this comment from Matthew Walter in Louisiana. Does 950 episodes with Bruce mean that he's created a new random space facts pronunciation 950 times? If so, he deserves a medal. Maybe we need an episode to explore this and other planetary radio lore. I don't know. I think you were in line for that Nobel for 950 pronunciations, but I think you blew it on this one. Oh,

I've ruined my chance. Matthew would probably give it to you. I can redo it. It was a different pronunciation. That was all that I really strive for. That's true. It was unique. Well, so much for a short random space fact segment to pick up time. But here's your short random space fact. On average, Neptune is about 78 times farther from the sun than Mercury. That's very good. On average, of course. Mostly because Mercury's orbit is quite

elliptical. Let's go on to the trivia contest. I asked you, on Michael Collins's second EVA, extravehicular activity, and this was on Gemini 10, by the way, what did he collect from the Agena target vehicle, and what unrelated item did he lose during that EVA? How'd we do, Matt? And what unrelated item did he lose during that EVA? How'd we do, Matt? You tripped up so many people, but you laid it out for them because you were looking for an unrelated item. And a lot of people came up with a related item to what he collected. Here's Dave Fairchild, our poet laureate, to give the correct answer.

With Collins and Young safe on board at the launch, the Gemini 10 took a ride. They caught up in orbit and rendezvoused with it, Agena, and parked close beside. While EVA floating, he pulled off the ferry and gathered the meteor pack. And yet when he entered, attached to his tether, his camera didn't come back. That's what you were looking for, right? That was indeed. Lost the Hasselblad camera that he had, and a micrometeorite collector is what he pulled off and brought back from the Agena target vehicle. Congratulations, Bert Caldwell in New York. Longtime listener, I think, but a first-time winner. Hasselblad, 70mm camera, and I guess Collins was pretty broken up about that. He thought he'd gotten some pretty good shots. Here's a bit of trivia from Bert, our

winner. Do you know who the Capcom was during Gemini 10, Bruce? They probably had multiple Capcoms, but no, I do not. You're right. Probably it was multiple, right? Because they did shifts. Well, at least one of them was Buzz Aldrin. Well, that makes sense. We are going to send Bert a copy of Andy Weir's new novel, Project Hail Mary, that you heard me raving about two weeks ago. And I continue to rave. It is that good. And I'm hearing from some of you about how much you're enjoying the book. And those of you who were smart enough when we warned you that there'd be spoilers,

well, now, you know, once you've read the book, come back and listen to the interview because it is great fun. Chris Mills in Virginia says, I tried on an EVA suit during a space medicine course many years ago. It's amazing that Collins could do any task at all. If I was up there, it probably had been an EVI,

an extravehicular inactivity. Well, they had trouble with a lot of, especially those early suits, they did have trouble moving around. Just one more thing from Gene Lewin, another poet up in Washington. Michael Collins exited Gemini 10 on his second EVA and brought with him a camera to take some shots along the way. Returning to the capsule, it was now nowhere in sight. Only the S-10 collector filled with micrometeorites. So if you're out in space one day and this Hasselblad floats by, take it to the photomat and get some 3x5s. When was the last time you heard anybody mention photomat? three by fives.

When was the last time you heard anybody mention photomat? Long, long enough that I had to think about it for a second. Yeah. I just thought I'd fill in that indeed the, they lost another collector that floated out of the cabin, but that was a meteorite collector pulled off the actual Gemini capsule, not from the Agena target vehicle. And indeed, that is why I said unrelated. All right.

What is the most massive star? Massive. What is the most massive star within 10 light years of Earth? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. Wow. I know that there are some big, big boys out there, but within 10 light years, interesting limits set on this one. You have until the 26th, that'd be May 26th at 8 a.m. Pacific time. And we're going back to the Planetary Radio t-shirt. Our good buddies at

chopshopstore.com who designed it and work with us because that's where the Planetary Society store is. They pointed out that they got some of these in inventory. We're going to have one for the winner of this contest and we may give these away for a few more weeks. They are very stylish. I know you feel that way because I saw you wearing one in a Zoom session yesterday. That is so true. I wear mine every day. Oh, that's good to know. And I'm glad we were in a Zoom session. Say goodnight, Bruce. Goodnight, Bruce. All right, everybody, go out there, look up in the night sky and think about

what shirt you would wear every day. Thank you and good night. Okay, you won me over. Planetary Radio t-shirt. Gotta be. He's Bruce Betts, the Chief Scientist of the Planetary Society, who joins us every week here for What's Up. Bruce wants you to know that there is much more about the upcoming lunar eclipse at planetary.org slash night hyphen sky. We'll also put a link on this week's show page at planetary.org slash radio. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by its members who sometimes feel like they're flying the friendly skies of Mars. Your ticket awaits at planetary.org slash join. Mark Gilverde is our associate producer.

Josh Doyle composed our theme, which is arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser at Astro.