How Ingenuity Talks to Us From Mars

1. 0:02NASA flies spacecraft all over the solar system, and orbits the Earth.
2. 0:07How do we communicate with them when they're so far away?
3. 0:10Let's find out from an expert.
4. 0:12Hi, I'm Jim Green, Chief Scientist at NASA and this is the Gravity Assist Podcast.
5. 0:18In this season of Gravity Assist, we'll go behind the scenes at NASA and we'll hear from
6. 0:23the scientists and engineers and others who make these amazing space missions happen.
7. 0:30I'm here with Nacer Chahat, and he is the Senior Antenna and Microwave Engineer with
8. 0:36NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory out in Pasadena, California.
9. 0:40Well, you know, communication with our surface assets on Mars is kind of complicated.
10. 0:45You know, when we landed Curiosity, I don't see it carrying a big truck with a big dish behind it.
11. 0:53So how do we communicate back and forth with, with our surface assets, like Insight, like Perseverance, like Curiosity?
12. 1:01Yes, so we have two concepts to do so.
13. 1:04The first one is to communicate with the orbiter.
14. 1:07So we have orbiters around Mars which we can they are dedicated for science, but for a
15. 1:14critical event like that, we can use them to relay the data to Earth.
16. 1:19And we also have on these landers and rover, high-gain antennas that allow us to communicate
17. 1:24directly with Earth but a lower that rate.
18. 1:27So it's really a trade off, when we should be using the orbiter or when we should be
19. 1:32using the high-gain antenna.
20. 1:33Most of the time, we end up using the orbiter because it allows us to transmit the science much faster.
21. 1:39Well, you know, we're flying a helicopter on Mars for the first time.
22. 1:42And we call that Ingenuity.
23. 1:44Did you get involved in that?
24. 1:45And what's your role?
25. 1:47My contribution was with the telecommunication subsystem, to ensure that the rover can send
26. 1:54commands to the helicopter, and the helicopter can send images or telemetry back to the rover.
27. 2:01So, I worked on the antenna design and also worked on the system engineering.
28. 2:06Wow, that sounds really difficult because this is a very small vehicle.
29. 2:11What's that antenna look like?
30. 2:13I don't remember seeing it.
31. 2:14Does it stick out?
32. 2:15Or is it part of it goes up to the top or, where's it at?
33. 2:19Yeah, so on the top of the helicopter, there is a solar panel, which allows us to recharge our battery.
34. 2:25And we decided to locate the antenna on this surface, because this is what provided the
35. 2:30largest area to use as a reflective surface.
36. 2:33So this is the simplest type of antenna that you can ever use.
37. 2:38This is called a monopole.
38. 2:39So monopole is basically a single wire.
39. 2:42This type of monopole antenna are being used when you need to communicate omnidirectionally.
40. 2:48Meaning, we need to communicate this with the same capabilities in any direction.
41. 2:54It's very small - it's about five to six centimeter
42. 2:57So it sounds like though the Ingenuity communication is only with, with Perseverance, and then
43. 3:06it's up to Perseverance to package that data and then send it up to an orbiter which then
44. 3:11relays it back to Earth.
45. 3:12That's exactly it.
46. 3:14Altimeter data confirms that Ingenuity has performed its first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet!
47. 3:24When I saw the first flight, I couldn't help but think of all of those hours working really
48. 3:30hard to solve technical problems.
49. 3:32This achievement is absolutely historical and I am happy I got to contribute.

Текст скрыт. Слушайте и старайтесь уловить общий смысл; щёлкните по размытой фразе, чтобы перейти к ней.