00:00Hey, you know what would be pretty cool?
00:02Having a tiny helicopter on Mars that can buzz around and scan the environment from above.
00:08Taking pictures and looking for hidden extraterrestrial life on its own.
00:13At some point, somebody at NASA said something like this behind closed doors.
00:18Then, they went and actually did it.
00:21Say hello to Ginny, one of the most significant scientific achievements since we first started exploring space.
00:30Back in 2020, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, packed a tiny side project onto the Mars mission.
00:38It was called Ingenuity, a flying experiment meant to test if powered flight was even possible on another planet.
00:46Just proof of concept, a test demo.
00:49The real mission was to explore the surface of Mars with the rover called Perseverance.
00:53In 2021, this six-wheeled robotic scientist about the size of a small SUV landed on Mars in a place called Jezero Crater.
01:04Scientists believe there was once a lake here about 3.5 billion years ago.
01:10That's important because where there's ancient water, there might have been ancient extraterrestrial life.
01:16Perseverance is basically a science lab on wheels.
01:21It can study rocks, drill into the surface, and stash samples in little sealed tubes for later.
01:27These samples are part of a long-term plan.
01:30NASA and ESA plan to bring them back to Earth in 2033 for more study.
01:36This could finally answer, has life ever existed outside Earth?
01:41Maybe samples won't give the definitive answer, but it's our best shot.
01:46Ugh, suddenly 2033 seems very far away.
01:51The rover has other instruments and testing tools that could greatly benefit future exploration of Mars.
01:56But the hero of this story is Ginny.
01:59They got the idea for this little chopper from drones here on Earth and thought it could fly around and scout for Perseverance.
02:06However, actually making it work on Mars sounds almost impossible.
02:12The first problem was the atmosphere.
02:15Mars has approximately only 1% of Earth's air pressure, which means there's barely anything to push against.
02:22On Earth, chopper blades bite into thick air to generate lift.
02:26Since there's basically no air on Mars, it's sort of like trying to swim in fog instead of water.
02:33Then there's gravity.
02:34Sure, it's only about 38% of Earth's, which helps a bit, but not nearly enough to offset the lack of air.
02:41To fly at all, the device would have to be feather light, with huge blades spinning like crazy, just to grab on to the thin air.
02:50Oh, and there's also the cold.
02:52At night, temperatures plunge to negative 130 degrees Fahrenheit,
02:57which is approximately the same as the coldest night ever recorded in Antarctica.
03:01That's enough to damage most electronics, and batteries hate the cold.
03:07So Ginny charged up during the day with a tiny solar panel,
03:10then used that power to keep warm through the freezing Martian night.
03:14Every day, scientists had to hope that their drone worth $80 million wouldn't land under a hill in a shadow,
03:22especially since it couldn't be controlled manually.
03:26Mars is so far away that signals can take up to 20 minutes to get there.
03:32Imagine playing a video game where your character has that kind of delay after you press a button.
03:38Ginny had to be fully autonomous.
03:39All these technological technicalities, and yet Ginny did not simply fly.
03:46What was first planned as a 30-day test trial with five flights ended up being a full-fledged support mission that lasted three years.
03:55So, how did engineers pull it off?
03:58First, they had to make Ginny as light as physically possible.
04:02Only four pounds.
04:03That's lighter than my house cat, but somehow, it still carried two cameras, a battery, a flight computer, a radio antenna, and even a heater.
04:14Everything had to be trimmed down, or miniaturized.
04:18Then came the blades.
04:20Ginny's most important feature.
04:22On Earth, a small helicopter spins its blades between 400 and 500 RPM.
04:27But we explained why that wouldn't work on Mars.
04:30So, Ginny's two rotor blades had to spin five times faster, about 2,500 revolutions per minute.
04:38Each blade was about two feet long, made from carbon fiber.
04:43Light as a feather, but tough as nails.
04:46And instead of sitting side by side like on a drone, those blades were stacked on top of each other, spinning in opposite directions.
04:53That cancels out the twisting force you'd normally get from a single spinning blade.
04:57You know how helicopters have that tiny tail rotor in the back?
05:03They need that because when their main rotor on top spins to lift the chopper up, it also creates a twisting force, called torque.
05:11That makes the entire vehicle want to spin in the opposite direction.
05:15Without some way to fight that, you'd end up doing donuts in the sky.
05:19However, Ginny couldn't have a tail rotor because it would add too much weight, take more power, and make things even more complicated.
05:28So, engineers created a workaround with two large blades stacked on top of each other, spinning in opposite directions, which prevented the drone from spinning out of control.
05:38As for controlling it, Ginny didn't have a full-blown AI, but it wasn't remote-controlled either.
05:46NASA uploaded flight plans from Earth, but once the drone took off, it flew itself using onboard sensors and code.
05:54Basically, like a really smart autopilot.
05:57To stay on course, it watched the ground with a downward-facing camera, kind of like tracking its own shadow as a guide.
06:05And finally, the result was seen in April 2021, when Ginny lifted off the Martian ground and hovered in place for just 39 seconds.
06:15It rose about 10 feet into the air, hovered a bit, spun around a little, and landed safely back on the red dirt.
06:23It was short and simple.
06:25One small step for a drone, but a huge one for humanity.
06:29For the next three years, the team responsible was testing the limits, flying Ginny further and further.
06:36From above, Ginny saw more than the rover could.
06:39The drone helped map the terrain, spotted risks like loose sand and sharp rocks, and even found shortcuts for Perseverance.
06:48It even saved the rover, so to speak, when its photos helped the team reroute the vehicle around a tricky dune.
06:55Ginny also made snapshots of interesting layered rocks, exactly the kind you'd need when you're searching for ancient life.
07:02Basically, once the drone spotted something weird or promising from above, Perseverance would roll over to check it out.
07:11And it worked way better than anyone expected.
07:15However, in January 2024, Ginny went missing.
07:19The drone was supposed to do a short hop, go up, hover, land, easy stuff.
07:24But after takeoff, NASA lost contact.
07:28For a while, no one knew what had happened, just silence.
07:31A few days later, NASA finally got a weak signal and pulled the flight data.
07:38Turns out, Ginny flew over a featureless terrain.
07:41See, it used its downward-facing camera to track movement, kind of like an optical mouse.
07:47No texture below meant nothing to lock onto.
07:51Mid-flight, the drone got disoriented, tilted, and during landing, one of its blades clipped the ground.
07:58NASA confirmed it.
07:59The rotor was damaged.
08:00It will never fly again.
08:03However, this is not a sad story.
08:08Even with broken wings, the robot is still useful.
08:12After Flight 72, NASA gave Ginny new software and a new job,
08:18staying powered on and quietly collecting daily data, possibly for the next 20 years.
08:24In a way, Ginny has gone from scout to ground-based observer.
08:28The biggest one on the horizon is Dragonfly, a car-sized rotorcraft scheduled to launch in 2028 and land on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.
08:45Titan has a thick atmosphere and low gravity, a dream environment for a flying drone.
08:51Dragonfly will hop from one location to another, searching for life in that icy landscape.
08:57It's like Ginny's big cousin, but with nuclear power and a whole moon to explore.
09:04The project Ingenuity's success is already inspiring NASA to design better Martian helicopters.
09:10Some of them could be equipped with grippers to pick up rock samples, or even join up with rovers for full-on search-and-collect operations.
09:19Thanks to Ginny, what started as a tech demo could one day evolve into a fleet of flying robots, criss-crossing the red planet.
09:30That's it for today. So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:37Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
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