A team of researchers led by Boise State University physics professor Brian Jackson recently published a Martian wind analysis using data from NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. This is the first time anyone has used an aircraft to measure wind speed and direction on another planet.
This research builds on existing work to understand the Martian atmosphere and its weather patterns. The Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in 2021 along with the Ingenuity helicopter, carries the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer. This tool collects atmospheric measurements near the Martian surface, but it’s limited by the rover’s reach and can only measure winds within about 1.5 meters above the surface.
Ingenuity can go much higher in the atmosphere, but it has no onboard wind sensors. That’s where Jackson and his team had to innovate. They were able to use engineering data from the aircraft to calculate wind velocity. The group used information about the helicopter’s attitude – its orientation relative to the horizon – to infer wind speed and direction at flight altitudes between three and 24 meters above the ground.
The researchers compared their wind calculations against the data Perseverance collected closer to the ground. In several instances, they calculated wind speeds faster from what Perseverance measured, in some cases much faster.
Click here to read more about Dr. Jackson’s research!