Ingenuity is flying Part 107 (mostly)
By: Joseph Rios
Tags: Ingenuity, NASA, Mars, Drones, Part 107

Amidst the excitement of the first and second controlled flights on another planet by humans, we have overlooked an important aspect of this achievement. Some might argue the most important aspect. Ingenuity is (mostly) meeting the Part 107 requirements for the operation of small drones. Thanks goodness, right? This article takes a closer look at Part 107 and its relation to Ingenuity (BTW, you’re welcome… I know you have been waiting for this analysis).

Ingenuity on Wright Brothers Field, Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Part 107

A primer on Part 107 is in order. Here is a fact sheet from the FAA and here is the actual legal text. There are also some good sites that summarize things better and more accurately than I might. Generally, Part 107 provides the rules for flying small (less than 55lbs) drones under 400ft AGL (Above Ground Level). If covers a large swath of commercial and government operations of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), but doesn’t cover hobbyists. Now on the Mars stuff!

Assumptions

Probably good to note my assumptions for this analysis.

Martian airspace is somehow under US sovereignty and is part of the National Airspace System. Without this assumption, this whole article would just be nonsense and no one wants that. Ingenuity’s chief pilot has a a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate as required by 107.12. This isn’t eligible for a waiver, so let’s just make the assumption that NASA knew this would be a set of Part 107 operations, so the pilot-in-command would have the appropriate certificate. He seems like a great guy and would have no problem obtaining one, if he doesn’t have one already. Here’s his blog post about the second flight and prep for the third flight. It follows that we assume that 107.56 through 107.79 are met regarding a bunch of pilot requirements. Ingenuity is registered appropriately with the FAA to meet 107.13. The Perseverance rover cannot be damaged by Ingenuity due to the way operations are executed. This assumption helps with arguments related to minimizing risk to damage of people or property. It’s probably safe to assume that the teams involved have done everything possible to avoid damaging Perseverance. Let’s also assume that Perseverance will not be moving during any Ingenuity flight so that we don’t have to worry about operation over moving vehicles. Visibility is sufficient on Mars. I talk about it a bit more below, but let’s assume we can see 3 statute miles and we won’t fly in any dust storms or whatever.

OK, with those assumptions laid out, let’s check if this is a Part 107 flight!

Part 107 Checklist

I’m only going to check the most common provisions as they are generally understood. The CFR should be consulted for exact language. I would hope it goes without saying, but you probably shouldn’t use this article for any official purpose like determining the legality of your flights here or on Mars.

+======================================================+========+

| Requirement | Met? |

+======================================================+========+

| Under 55lbs. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Never operate in a careless or reckless manner. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Keep your drone within sight. | Waived |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Pilot only operating one vehicle at a time. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Do not fly a drone over non-participating people. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Do not operate moving vehicle or aircraft. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Operation during the day. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| No carriage of hazardous material. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Yield to other aircraft. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Do not operate in controlled airspace. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Do not interfere with airports. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Do not operate in restricted or prohibited airspace. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Obey NOTAMs. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Preflight inspections. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Less than 100MPH. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Below 400ft AGL. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Visibility at least 3SM. | ? |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| Minimum distance from clouds. | ? |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| No ATC transponder. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

| No ADS-B out. | ✓ |

+------------------------------------------------------+--------+

Looking pretty good!

Weather

The question marks are related to my lack of Mars weather knowledge. There are clouds there, but they are not exactly like the ones we have on Earth. Visibility seems good from the pics I’ve seen. I’m going to give this one a pass as noted in the assumptions above! More on Mars clouds here.

Mars clouds! (source)

Beyond Visual Line of Sight

The big gotcha for Part 107 here is obviously the lack of a human pilot that can see the whole operation with the unaided eye. Lots of aiding going on for the pilot’s eyes! So we will need a waiver for 107.31. The good news is that there is plenty of precedent for this type of waiver. You can even search all of the ones that have been granted.

This waiver is granted by making a good safety case for your operation. How do you keep the aircraft from hitting other aircraft if you can’t see it? If you are landing and taking off remotely, how do you know you won’t harm anything or anyone on the ground? These arguments would be easy to make on Mars circa 2021! Nothing else in the air! No one on the ground! Nothing on the ground nearby except Perseverance and we assumed that risk away up above! Done! Apply through DroneZone and you are there! Note that this also helps us cover the requirements related to a visual observer… we’d make the argument we don’t need a visual observer to help watch the airspace.

Concluding Remarks

So there you have it. Ingenuity is not only the first controlled flight on another planet for us humans, it could have been the first flight on another planet that met Part 107 requirements! Now which of those is would have been more impressive, really?

Looking forward to everyone telling me what I messed up in this article about applying United States aviation rules to flying on Mars!