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It is literally a milestone on a list of milestones. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/mars_2020/launch/mission/spacecraft/experimental_technologies/ ht
by galacticaactual 6y ago
It is literally a milestone on a list of milestones.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/mars_2020/launch/mission/spacecraft/experimental_technologies/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/mars_2020/launch/mi...
- whimsicalism 6y agoWow, reading the first comment I would think that this was planned. It literally is the third thing on a list of "milestones."
- amelius 6y agoI find the order of milestones a little surprising. Why didn't they test the survival of the freezing cold after testing the rotor blades, lift-off and perhaps a short flight in the vicinity of the rover?
- thelean12 6y agoIt's probably as simple as: they didn't have time. You have to move slowly and carefully on Mars. One rushed mistake and it's over.
- amelius 6y agoYes, but chances of getting useful data out of the helicopter are much greater if you test the thing before subjecting it to harsh conditions. For example: if you know that lift-off works, then that's a huge datapoint.
- thelean12 6y agoI bet they'd move faster if they could. I'm guessing for takeoff there's a good amount of analysis to do beforehand. Terrain, weather, system checks, whatever. I don't know the actual list, but it's not hard to guess why they couldn't do everything, including ejecting it from the main rover and getting the main rover out of the way, in the ~12-14 hours a day that they have to do stuff.
- jacobreg 6y agoThey don't want to fly it with the rover nearby. It needs to get to a safe distance before they can fly it.
- ceejayoz 6y agoThey fully expect it to survive the night - it'll have survived identical conditions in pre-launch testing - and thus there's no need to rush through the other steps.
- hahajk 6y agoIdentical except that the real one blasted off in a rocket.
- ceejayoz 6y agoPart of the testing procedure includes vibration and sound testing that effectively simulates launch conditions. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/639713main_Vibration_Testing_FTI.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/639713main_Vibratio... NASA knows what they’re doing.