26 ms·
The Mars Helicopter Is Online and Getting Ready to Fly
- jefft255 6y agoI am incredibly excited for this. Can believe how nervous the control engineers must be for this. Not sure what quality of the footage to expect from this.
- disago 6y agoSadly, this helicopter won't record any footage, it is only meant to test flight control and to proof that the idea will work for future missions. There is a interesting Veritasium episode (youtube) that talks about this (interviewing the actual designer from the JPL). The only footage will be from Perseverance filming the flight.
- orev 6y agoWow, that’s disappointing. I’m surprised they couldn’t squeeze a basic mobile phone camera module on there just for the sake of it.
- nitrogen 6y agoI had initially assumed that they would be using it for aerial photos to improve navigation decisions. Kind of sad if not.
- jefft255 6y agoThere absolutely are cameras on board, and yes they are used for navigation. My original question relates more to bandwidth, storage and processing limitation which may mean that we won’t see high quality 30 FPS video.
- giantrobot 6y agoThe Snapdragon CPU has plenty of power for JPEG encoding and likely even hardware accelerated encoders. The 640x480 8bpp navcam images could be entirely usable at a fairly lossy 40:1 compression ratio which ends up about about 8KB per frame, for a 90s flight recording at 10fps that's only about 7.2MB to record the whole flight. It would take a little under 5 minutes to send that back to the rover at 200kbps. The color high resolution camera isn't set up for high frame rate recording IIRC so that was never an option. High quality 30fps video was never really an option but it's entirely possible/likely to get navcam video after a flight. The Snapdragon is also fast enough to do intraframe compression codec (even h.264) for the navcam video to be able to stream it live back to the rover for relaying back to Earth later like was done with the landing imagery. The nature of Perseverance relaying through orbiters for high speed uplink to Earth was always going to preclude "live" video from any instrument. The only data important enough for "live" transmission is vehicle telemetry and even then that's only available for the portion of a sol (Martian sidereal day) that Earth is visible from the rover.
- umeshunni 6y agoI suspect it's to save power. Even mobile phone cameras are very power hungry.
- kerng 6y agoI think the rover is at least going to film the flight, but agree a camera in it would have been dope.
- akiselev 6y agoThe problem isn't the camera, it's the uplink to Perseverance and all the other parts required for a usable camera. They're using Zigbee [1] to communicate with the Rover at 200 kbps and the solar panel recharging the batteries also have to power heaters to keep the electronics alive - there's no hardware connection between the two for data or power exchange AFAICT. The drone is already so heavy that it can only stay aloft for 90 seconds to a few minutes between charges so between the extra battery, lens, better antenna and RF module, etc. it'd require a redesign of the entire mission. [1] https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_AIAA2018_0023.pdf https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_A... - page 15
- _joel 6y agoIt's not that heavy, relatively speaking, it has to spin the rotors a lot faster to gain altitude in 1% atmosphere of Earth, hence the shorter flight time.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mholt 6y agoAre you suuuuure about that? > Its payload is a high resolution downward-looking camera for navigation, landing, and science surveying of the terrain, and a communication system to relay data to the Perseverance rover. (From Wikipedia) Also: https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25526/bottom-of-ingenuity-mars-helicopter/ https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25526/bottom-of-ingenuity-ma... I'm pretty sure the point of the helicopter, other than to test powered flight, is to capture frames.
- bichonnages 6y agoIt does have cameras. https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25526/bottom-of-ingenuity-mars-helicopter/ https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25526/bottom-of-ingenuity-ma...
- l2p 6y agoThis is not correct, there are multiple downward facing cameras [a]: 1) Navigation (NAV) Camera. This is a global-shutter, nadir pointed grayscale 640 by 480 pixel sensor (Omnivision OV7251) mounted to a Sunny optics module. It has a field-of-view (FOV) of 133 deg (horizontal) by 100 deg (vertical) with an average Instantaneous Field-of-view (IFOV) of 3.6 mRad/pixel, and is capable of acquiring images at 10 frames/sec. Visual features are extracted from the images and tracked from frame to frame to provide a velocity estimate. 2) Return-to-Earth (RTE) Camera. This is a rolling shutter, high-resolution 4208 by 3120 pixel sensor (Sony IMX 214) with a Bayer color filter array mated with an O-film optics module. This camera has a FOV of 47 deg (horizontal) by 47 deg (vertical) with an average IFOV of 0.26 mRad/pixel. [a]https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/46229/CL%2317-6243.pdf https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/46229/CL%2317...
- hcrisp 6y agoShouldn't that be a Return-to-Mars (RTM) Camera?
- _Microft 6y agoNo, it is going to record images meant to be returned to Earth. See section "Sensors" on page 13 in https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/46229/CL%2317-6243.pdf#page=13 https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/46229/CL%2317...
- disago 6y agoBut aren't those cameras just for navigation and won't record or stream any footage? Edit: spelling
- tjoff 6y agoOne of the stated goals is to use of the drone to scout interesting places for other drones. In theory I guess it could take that decision without sharing the source images, but that seems a bit far fetched. You'd want to study them in ridiculous detail.
- shellfishgene 6y agoI was also excited about it, however an article critical of various points of Mars 2020 damped this quite a bit [1 (in German)]: Does the drone actually have any scientific relevance? I'm even doubtful it answers relevant engineering questions. I mean, it was tested in a pressure chamber already simulating mars atmosphere and gravity, we know it will work. The only question seems to be: Will it fail because of some engineering oversight or hardware failure, or not? There seem to be no scientific sensors on it at all. This 'commodity hardware test' could also be done with just the processor and monitoring, without the helicopter part. Looking at it like this it seems like mostly a toy or PR stunt, but one that takes $80M and space on the rover away from scientific projects. [1] https://www.golem.de/news/perseverance-diese-marsmission-hat-keinen-applaus-verdient-2102-154325.html https://www.golem.de/news/perseverance-diese-marsmission-hat...
- Daho0n 6y agoI do not agree at all that it is not useful but even if true the PR in itself is likely worth it, both for getting more attention to NASA (IE. budgeting) and for sparking ideas and dreams.
- shellfishgene 6y agoI'll gladly change my mind, what is it useful for? On your other point, I'm sure many people find it fascinating and are inspired. However a young geologist or biologist might not be inspired to start a career at NASA. Another point the author of the article above makes it that in the ~2 hours of live coverage, 6 seconds were spent discussing the rovers instruments. As for budget, this is also dangerous; after all, if the next funding round comes along, anyone who does not like NASA can have an easy argument that the $80M on the helicopter are wasted and did not produce any knowledge about Mars or the universe.
- jefft255 6y agoIt's useful (if it doesn't die) for scouting. From above, it will have a better look at the terrain, helping mission control do path planning and terrain/risk assessment. I have no information telling me that's going to happen, but this is my fairly educated guess as to how the drone could be used.
- ayoubElk 6y agoJust thinking about the amount of work done planning, creating, and deploying this blows my mind! Incredible achievement!
- undefined1 6y agothank you NASA (and SpaceX) for being a source of inspiration and hope in a time when it's in such short supply. amazing work!
- deanclatworthy 6y agoThe headline implies it will be soon, but the article doesn't give any information on when the first flight + footage is planned to happen. Tomorrow, days, weeks?
- vidanay 6y agoThe recent NOVA episode indicated that it would be around a month after landing for the helicopter flights.
- tesseract 6y agoI haven't seen anything on specific timing but I read they will be looking suitable terrain (flat with no large dangerous rocks, but enough small rocks for the helicopter's vision system to register) to fly in as the rover drives. There's also no provision for the rover to pick the helicopter back up as far as I know, so they will be stuck in the same place during the 30 day test campaign. Given that and given the "proof of concept" nature of the helicopter I imagine there might be a desire to start getting data back from the rover's main scientific instruments before deploying the helicopter.
- momothereal 6y agoAccording to https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/how-nasas-mars-helicopter-will-reach-the-red-planets-surface https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/how-nasas-mars-helicopter-will... (July 2020), it'll launch 60-70 sols after landing, so roughly mid-April.
- rwmj 6y agoWikipedia page about the Ingenuity helicopter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter) I didn't realise it was so large (1.8 kg, 1.2 m diameter rotors). I suppose it has to have the large rotors to be able to generate lift in the thin atmosphere, 1/160th of the density [edit: pressure, not density - thanks Robotbeat] of the earth's atmosphere at sea level according to the article.
- emteycz 6y agoWow, I never realized it might be 160 times harder to get off the ground on Mars. Perhaps lower gravity helps on the other hand, though the difference definitely seems way lower (please correct me if my physics is wrong).
- azernik 6y agoYup - lower gravity helps, but by much less than the orders of magnitude by which the thin atmosphere hinders.
- Robotbeat 6y agoTurns out it’s not quite so bad. 1/160th the pressure doesn’t mean 1/160th density because CO2 is denser for the same pressure, especially Martian temperatures. And Jezero crater is much lower than Mars “sea level.”
- azernik 6y agoThis apparently also introduces some serious control issues - with propellers that long and massive, there's substantial lag between control inputs and flight changes. In ground tests in pressure chambers, it was difficult-to-impossible to manually pilot the thing, and even under computer control it's very clearly shakier than Earth-atmosphere drones.
- aq3cn 6y agoits blades rotate over 2000 rpm. it can fly upto 90 seconds consuming 10 to 15 watts. it is meant to be eyes of main rover to guide it.
- johnchristopher 6y agoWill there be a live feed ?
- mekkkkkk 6y agoI'm not sure that the drone has an uplink. If not, it would have to relay images to the rover over a 200kbps zigbee connection for transmission. Unlikely to be video in that case, more reasonably highly delayed still frames. Would be more in line with its mission profile as well.
- johnchristopher 6y agoI was thinking of something like they did for the landing.
- lr1970 6y agoI hope that the chopper will not generate an opaque cloud of dust while hovering and am looking forward to seeing spectacular images.
- pureliquidhw 6y agoGiven the weight of the craft and thin atmosphere, I would be surprised if there was any noticeable surface disturbance anytime outside of takeoff/landing.
- thehappypm 6y agoWouldn’t a thin atmosphere cause more disturbance? Naively, something thick and soupy is easier to push around than something thick and heavy.
- arrosenberg 6y agoAtmosphere is required to carry the energy that would cause disturbance. With no atmosphere, there are few molecules in the space around the copter to transfer the energy to the surface.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y ago>One of the most significant obstacles for landing on Mars will continue to present problems for our heroic helicopter now that it is safely on the surface. The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars is only about 1% that of Earth. To put that in perspective, the summit of Mount Everest has only one-third the atmospheric pressure of sea level. While this is thought to be at (or sadly in some cases beyond) the limit of what humans can survive, it is well beyond Earthbound helicopters’ range. If you’ve ever wondered why wealthy explorer-types don’t just cheat and take a helicopter to the summit of Everest, that’s why! Ummm... actually: >On June 21, 1972, Jean Boulet of France piloted an Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama helicopter to an absolute altitude record of 40,814 feet (12,440 m).[60] At that extreme altitude, the engine flamed out and Boulet had to land the helicopter by breaking another record: the longest successful autorotation in history.[61] The helicopter was stripped of all unnecessary equipment prior to the flight to minimize weight, and the pilot breathed supplemental oxygen. >The record was broken on March 23, 2002 by Fred North. North achieved an altitude of 42,500 feet (12,954 m) in a Eurocopter AS350 B2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record Also: Mount Everest AS350 B3 landing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXNXSvnCtKA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXNXSvnCtKA
- cpgxiii 6y agoIt should be clear that while Eurocopter and Aerospatiale before them liked showing off specific modified helicopters in the Himalayas (up to and including landing on Everest), none of them were capable of carrying a useful payload to that altitude. Helicopter altitude records are much like zoom-climb records in jet aircraft - yes, you can reach those altitudes, but not for long and not while doing anything else.
- 8bitsrule 6y agoEverest landing video (2014). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXNXSvnCtKA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXNXSvnCtKA Some current records. https://pilotteacher.com/how-high-can-you-go-in-a-helicopter-can-you-land-on-mount-everest/ https://pilotteacher.com/how-high-can-you-go-in-a-helicopter...
- christiansakai 6y agoI really really don’t understand the point of doing Mars when we have a lot of things to do on this Earth.
- idiotsecant 6y agoI don't understand the point of all this business of learning trigonometry when there's all these history books to read! Relax, we can and should do both. In fact, the various space programs have been immensely useful in terms of the technology we can apply right here at home and we learn stuff about our neighborhood. The more big, bold science and engineering we do the more our species benefits.
- Teknoman117 6y agoIs the plan to hide Perseverance behind a hill or something in the event the flight becomes uncontrolled? Last thing they need is a flying blender slamming into it...
- Brajeshwar 6y agoYou should watch Dr. Derek Muller of Veritasium, who did a video (2019) details of the Helicopter while it was being built. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM
- darknavi 6y agoSomething really cool about seeing the device sitting on a table and realizing that it is now on Mars. Working on this stuff must be _very_ rewarding (assuming that the payloads land in one piece!).
- ilamont 6y agoOne of the most significant obstacles for landing on Mars will continue to present problems for our heroic helicopter now that it is safely on the surface. The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars is only about 1% that of Earth. Does this also limit the use of parachutes on Mars, or require bigger canopies? I know that Perseverance had a parachute for part of the descent, but not the final landing sequence. IIRC one of the earlier probes was designed to bounce rather than gently floating down.
- dogma1138 6y agoBoth, but the main limit of a parachute is that our probes don’t go into orbit first but rather crash on Mars. So you enter the atmosphere at higher than orbital speeds. From orbit a parachute might be doable despite the relatively thin atmosphere. Stationary probes can use retro rockets to land because you don’t care about their stationary mass that much. For rovers it’s more tricky so you have to either use airbags like the smaller rovers did or a propulsive landing like Percy/Curiosity. The sky crane was chosen as the method for those because they are too massive to do a cushioned crash landing and they won’t be likely able to move with the weight of the propulsive landing system so we have to ditch it. The sky crane is basically the worlds most expensive bungee jump. The rockets on the sky crane bring the rover to hover and then it drops to the ground on a set of arresting cables.
- grecy 6y agoThanks for the extremely interesting info >our probes don’t go into orbit first but rather crash on Mars. I'm wondering why they don't go into orbit, and what extra complexities that introduces? In the future are we anticipating Starship to go into orbit, or will it also directly "crash" ?
- mdorazio 6y agoGoing into orbit first would require a significant amount of extra fuel to decelerate and circularize. Heading straight into the atmosphere means more mass can go into the rovers instead of into fuel. It's a trade-off.
- birktj 6y agoOne of the things I find really cool about Ingenuity is how it is in large based on consumer hardware. The main processor is a Snapdragon 801 running Linux which communicates with Perseverance using the Zigbee protocol [1]. Perseverance on the other hand uses a RAD750 from 2001! If successful I hope this can lead to more modern hardware for these kinds of missions in general. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter)
- mushufasa 6y agoOne of the fascinating things about space silicon is that NASA spends many years hardening specific processors to withstand the types of shocks and electromagnetic interference from space travel. These intensive processes mean that the equipment they can use is always 10-20 years behind the modern equivalents.
- marcinzm 6y agoAren't smaller transistor sizes also more susceptible to radiation issues which means you can't really use newer processors without ever more effort in radiation hardening?
- Robotbeat 6y agoSmaller transistors also have a smaller cross-section so for the same number of transistors this somewhat cancels out.
- laydn 6y agoWhy is nobody worried about the helicopter crashing to the rover and possibly destroying a science instrument? How far will the helicopter be from the rover?
- ncallaway 6y agoI would imagine that NASA is extremely worried about that, and has gone to great lengths to ensure it's not an outcome. Why do you assume that nobody has worried about this, or considered this contingency?
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoBecause NASA isn't full of idiots.
- cosmonaughty 6y agoRight. They are very clever. They are clever enough to have all of you believing this AVR enhanced cartoon was a real Martian landing. If those helicopter blades spin 40x faster than a real chopper at sea level air pressure on earth, the turbulence alone would disintegrate the flywheel and blades and destroy the whole thing. So how did they test it? Let a experiment explain it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cx9mNnky2U https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cx9mNnky2U
- dragonwriter 6y ago> If those helicopter blades spin 40x faster than a real chopper at sea level air pressure on earth, the turbulence alone would disintegrate the flywheel and blades and destroy the whole thing. So how did they test it? The obvious method would be a large vacuum chamber, evacuated enough to simulate martian atmospheric pressure. Google it and, yes, that's exactly it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter)#Testing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter)#Testi...
- cosmonaughty 6y ago
- poundofshrimp 6y ago> February 22, 2021
- mrbonner 6y agoWatching the PBS NOVA series “Finding life on Mars” I am so proud to see such an astounding diversity of ethnicities involved in the Mars 2020 projects. I can’t phantom any other countries would have inclusively included other ethnicities in such a high profile project. Despite so many set backs in 2020, the US is still the most inclusive country at least in science and research.
- ris 6y ago> Despite so many set backs in 2020, the US is still the most inclusive country at least in science and research. What makes you say that and what other countries are you comparing it with/do you have information for?
- Kye 6y agoEthnicity isn't always visible. Just because a crowd of, for example, Indians or Qatari look the same to you in a command center video doesn't mean they're all alike or that the whole range of identities on the program are in that room at that time.
- holoduke 6y agoHave you been at the ESA stations in Europe. Lots of diversity there. Even in Russia you have loads of foreigners working. About China I am not so sure though
- Youden 6y agoDoes anyone know why they chose to send a helicopter and not some kind of plane or glider? I would've thought that a fixed-wing aircraft would have been simpler, lighter, faster and more efficient.
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoHow many runways do you see on Mars
- EarthLaunch 6y agoWhat if a glider separated prior to the initial main landing? I guess that would increase the risks around the landing.
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoI mean the point is to test a re-flyable vehicle. A single use glider would seem to defeat the point
- giantrobot 6y agoAll that does is complicate the already complicated EDL phase by an order of magnitude. Trying to launch a drone from the lander during descent would mean: 1) the drone is able to begin its power up process at the end of the cruise phase while the whole probe is buttoned up for reentry 2) the drone has a big enough battery to power avionics, comms, component heaters, and the motors 3) the drone carries a big enough radio and antenna to at least reliably communicate with one of the orbiters relaying data from it and the main spacecraft 4) there's a at least one orbiter positioned to receive data from the drone and the drone manages to perfectly aim its highly directional high gain antenna at the orbiter after an unknown launch position and orientation 5) everything goes perfectly with the drone and it doesn't collide with or damage the sky crane or rover or debris from its launch (or failure) doesn't damage anything Saying it "increases risks" with the landing is a vast understatement.
- zokier 6y ago
- NotChina 6y agoNow to see if X-plane's Mars simulator proves accurate.
- tempodox 6y agoI dearly miss that part of X-Plane. It was crazy challenging and fascinating to experience the effects of a thin atmosphere almost-first-hand.
- neatze 6y agoSince Perseverance has microphone, I wonder, will we be able to hear Ingenuity fly ?
- azernik 6y agoVery likely. In ground testing, even in a thin Mars-equivalent atmosphere, that thing is LOUD.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TaupeRanger 6y agoSix days old. Are there any recent updates? Didn't see much on the official Twitter or website.
- julienchastang 6y agoFun fact: This is not the first time a space program has flown on another planet. The Soviets launched weather balloons on Venus during the Venera missions [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program#Balloon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program#Balloon
- endymi0n 6y agoThis is so cool, I didn‘t know about these yet and I‘d call myself a space buff... Speaking of flight and picking the nits here — looks like Wikipedia also isn‘t completely correct here: > It is planned to make the first powered flight on any planet beyond Earth ...arguably the first _powered_ flights were done by the sky cranes of Opportunity and Perseverance
- svachalek 6y agoIt seems that rocket propulsion does not count as “powered flight”
- alpaca128 6y ago> ...arguably the first _powered_ flights were done by the sky cranes of Opportunity and Perseverance Not the Apollo 11 lunar module? In contrast to the sky cranes it actually lifted off again.
- m4rtink 6y agoOn Mars the Viking probes used rockets for controlled landing, so that likely also counts. Pathfinder just had one shot braking rockets.
- dal 6y agoThe moon is not a planet.
- rriepe 6y agoI'd argue Mars is still the most impressive. Rockets in no atmosphere is easy. Floating on Venus is easy because it has more atmo than any other rocky planet. Figuring out something that works well in Mars' thin (but still there) atmosphere, especially a helicopter, is really impressive. The celestial body classification is just a cherry on top.
- dalbasal 6y agoThere's something ironic about sending a spaceship to another planet and then being excited about a flying machine's maiden journey. That said, I'm super excited. I hope we get VR video at some point. I want to soar over martian hills. These guys are my heros.
- cookingoils 6y agoDoes anyone know when the first test flight will be and if it will be recorded by the rover?
- jcun4128 6y agoKinda curious those "pointy counterweights?" near the hub of the rotors, why are those there? Looks like they'd run into each other? It looks like it has full collective/cyclic on both levels.
- KMag 6y agoNot sure about the counter-weights, but without a tail rotor, I'm pretty sure it requires either a collective on both levels, or else software to navigate properly when the body is spinning, and some mechanism to allow it to safely land while the body is spinning. The torque to spin the rotor changes with the blade angle, so to keep the counter-rotating torques balanced, they need to control blade pitch on both. I suppose the blade drag is a non-linear function of blade angle, so technically they might be able to keep the torques balanced with cyclics on both and a collective only on one, but it's certainly much more simple to have at least collectives on both.
- jcun4128 6y agoYeah I don't know enough myself. I wonder if you could use drag change on one and rpm change on the other, maybe balance out in terms of lift. But yeah maybe those pointy things are just weights/for aerodynamics.
- KMag 6y agoOh, I'm pretty sure you want them spinning at the same speed so their angular momenta cancel out, in case a wind gust puts a torque around a horizontal axis on the system... cross product of angular momentum with applied torque...
- jzer0cool 6y agoNeat! Didn't know a drone/helicopter was part of the mars mission payload. Is this autonomous or remote controlled?
- jbuch 6y agoThey give it high-level commands like "run this flight pattern at 11am", but there's no human controlling a joystick. It takes radio waves 3-20 minutes (depending on orbit position) to travel from earth to mars (and vice versa), so direct control would be impossible.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoHopefully they will turn on the microphones of the rover. Supposedly this thing is brutally loud.
- djmips 6y agoI wonder how they considered dust (dust storms) in their design of the mars helicopter.
- smoe 6y agoThey briefly talk about it in this Veritasium Video at around the 9 minute mark https://youtu.be/GhsZUZmJvaM https://youtu.be/GhsZUZmJvaM He says, unlike in the movies, it is not really an issue. With 1% earth’s atmosphere there is very little matter actually hitting you.
- feralimal 6y agoThe mars atmosphere is equivalent to 120,000 feet. The record altitude for a helicopter on earth is 40,820 feet. How are helicopters able to fly so high on Mars? Also, parachutes do not open when the altitude is greater than 15,000 feet. How was the rover able to land at all with parachutes, in an atmosphere equivalent to 120,000 feet?
- feralimal 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKEBHliLEYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKEBHliLEYw
- KuiN 6y agoPhase 1 of the landing used parachutes to bleed off speed, but they aren't able to slow it enough for a soft landing. So a Skycrane was used for the second phase / touching down. The blades on Ingenuity are larger (relative to the rest of the vehicle) and spin much faster than would be required on Earth.
- feralimal 6y agoParachutes cannot open at 15000 feet on earth - the air pressure is not there. Why do they open at an air pressure equivalent of 120000 on Mars? And even if they did open, they would only be able to carry a miniscule weight. You realise that in a pure vacuum, a feather drops as quickly as a ball bearing?
- amelius 6y agoIt's difficult to tell these days which images/videos are real and which are computer-generated.
- chriskanan 6y agoI'm very excited for this. When I was working at JPL 7 years ago they were still trying to get approval, and now they get to test it out. I'm even more excited for the Dragonfly mission with a flying drone on Titan, but that's a long time to wait: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(spacecraft) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(spacecraft) I wish we could fund NASA more, make it more risk tolerant, more agile, and more efficient. The Titan boat drone to explore the lakes, last I heard, couldn't be scoped due to resources. Working there requires great patience.
- erklik 6y ago> I wish we could fund NASA more, make it more risk tolerant, more agile, and more efficient. The Titan boat drone to explore the lakes, last I heard, couldn't be scoped due to resources. Working there requires great patience. I wonder if funding NASA more would mean that the "inventive" ideas get reduced. The limitation of NASA's funding has meant that they've produced ideas and technologies to cover that shortfall in even cheaper ways than possible before, and that might be reduced with a much large budget.
- Daho0n 6y agoI believe so. Funding competitors would likely yield better results, unless one is looking for US results versus results overall of course. A lot of very exciting missions are from other space agencies these days, which is great!
- endoelenar58 6y agoMost importantly it's use case of a helicopter, to prepare to the dragonfly mission at proposed 2036. One only hope for the bandwidth at the level of perseverance, it's 16 times farther after all.
- hikerclimb 6y agoI hope it fails.