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NASA space copter ready for first Mars flight

143 points by dnetesn 6y ago

_Microft 6y ago
"The current plan for the first-ever attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet is [...] to take off from Mars' Jezero Crater on Sunday at 10:54 pm US eastern time (0254 GMT Monday) and hover 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface for a half-minute, NASA said." Set your alarms :) If the given time is actually take off, we can expect images from the flight at the earliest around 11:10pm (E(S?)T)/ 03:31 AM (GMT) as Earth and Mars are currently at a distance of 15 light minutes from each other. If they don't have a live feed, I would watch their Twitter account just in case. Useful links: https://mobile.twitter.com/NASAPersevere https://mobile.twitter.com/NASAPersevere https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ Edit: see reply by samizdis for another, better link
- _joel 6y ago
  I'm not sure there will be images that quickly, just the telemetry to confirm if it was successful or not.
  - janmo 6y ago
    The bitrate Earth/Mars is very low. It will take a lot more.
    - ape4 6y ago
      I hope there is a movie eventually.
    - _joel 6y ago
      The direct earth to rover comms is slow but it's a lot quicker via MRO as it has a higher gain antenna. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/communications/ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/communicatio...
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      Would setting up 60 Starlink satellites in a line to transmit between the two help?
      - nvahalik 6y ago
        No. It’s not a power or signal quality problem. It’s a speed-of-radio waves problem. Mars is really far away. And unfortunately we don’t have something like an Ansible to make communication instant.
        maxov 6y ago
        I think this situation is a good illustration of latency vs bandwidth. Latency is unavoidable due to the speed of light, but there’s no physical barrier to bitrate aside from power consumption. Seems like the best bitrate we have from Mars is MRO at ~5 megabits/s which is enough for standard definition video. I’m certain we have the technology to push it higher, but it would be expensive and it seems it’s not really needed for existing projects.
        dredmorbius 6y ago
        Nit, though I'm going a bit (pun status unspecified) beyond my paygrade here: bandwidth is ultimately limited by the frequency of the trandsmission channel, though multiple channels can be multiplexed. This is the heart of Claude Shannon's work. For deep-space transmission, other factors apply, though if you're operating in the right frequencies, the background noise level is low (at least as compared to Earth where there are numerous competing signals of terrestrial origin). And whilst signal/noise ratio does impose limits, there's only so much that boosting volume dB will achieve before you hit the channel limits themselves. To increase bandwith beyond channel limits, you'd have to multiplex channels, which would involve different frequencies, different transmission routes (say, to widely-separated relay systems), or both. For physical media (e.g., fibre) this is relatively easy. For broadcast, given mass and energy budgets of spacecraft, probes, and rovers, the problems are harder. Encoding, redundancy, error-correction, and retransmit protocols can all increase the ultimate reliability of the signal, though these impose other costs, notably on bitrate or at least time until the transmission is confirmed.
- samizdis 6y ago
  According to NASA [1]: Perseverance is expected to obtain imagery of the flight using its Navcam and Mastcam-Z imagers, with the pictures expected to come down that evening (early morning Monday, April 12, in Southern California). The helicopter will also document the flight from its perspective, with a color image and several lower-resolution black-and-white navigation pictures possibly being available by the next morning. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-mars-helicopter-to-make-first-flight-attempt-sunday https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-mars-helicopter-to...
- d--b 6y ago
  They’re quite confident. 3m is pretty high. Is there a reason not to hover at 1m? Maybe the lower gravity makes it acceptable...
  - birktj 6y ago
    Ground effect? But I would assume with such low atmospheric density the effect is probably not so strong.
  - JshWright 6y ago
    What risks would be reduced by dropping the max altitude from 3m to 1m?
    - d--b 6y ago
      Obviously not an expert here. But here on Earth I would happily jump 1m but I'd probably break a leg from 3m. Somebody must have decided that a 3m test flight was the best option. Maybe it's because if something fails, at least they may collect 1 picture at 3m high, and that's better than 1 picture at 1m...
- dima55 6y ago
  They had a software glitch, and the flight was pushed back a few days while they investigate.
totetsu 6y ago
i guess i skim read news too much because i thought this happened last week.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  Last week I almost thought it flew, but then it actually said "survived first night" not "survived first flight". And now I spot "first Mars flight" in the headline and thought it again but... nope, now it's "ready to fly". Like, great, let me know when it does.
14 6y ago
I once witnessed a person take their brand new electric rc helicopter place it on the ground and before I knew it the thing flipped over and smashed itself on the ground. I have a lot of respect for them taking their time; this could work incredibly well or for some unforeseen reason smash into the ground. In my situation it was the loss of signal that caused the accident when the pilot admitted to accidentally shutting off his controller right at that moment.
- qwertox 6y ago
  RC helicopter flying has evolved into something really insane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXSfFLGeVZA&t=156s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXSfFLGeVZA&t=156s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E24JIetETAE&t=91s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E24JIetETAE&t=91s
  - amiramir 6y ago
    Thanks for links. I had no idea. I tried flying an RC copter some time ago (piston engine) and getting it to hover was a nerve-wracking triumph. These folks and electric motors have taken it into another dimension.
    - spookthesunset 6y ago
      Not just electric motors but cheap, high quality flight controllers. That and kickass batteries.
    - pengaru 6y ago
      The nitro helis are no slouches either, they're all capable of insane 3D maneuvers in the right hands. The exhaust plume of a nitro doing the same things is kind of more interesting IMHO, it's like a telltale in a wind tunnel test. I'm surprised they don't put a smoke bomb on the electrics during these demos.
  - xwdv 6y ago
    Oh wow, can a full size helicopter do that? Would be amazing to see at an air show.
mobilemidget 6y ago
The solar panel on the YouTube thumbnail looks quite dusty.
- imglorp 6y ago
  I wonder if the rotor wash will clean them off or kick up more dust and make them worse.
hnedeotes 6y ago
"Musk, get to tha choppa!"
arendtio 6y ago
When I read such articles I imagine SpaceX dropping their own rover in a few years that will autonomously drive around and gather more data in 30 days than NASA had in 30 years. However, it will also manage to get stuck/kill itself within the 30 days ;-)
- imglorp 6y ago
  This is my concern about SpaceX applying its superpower to Mars. Rapid prototype iteration on Mars is orbital time: you wait 2 years for the next launch window and then ~7 months for travel, blow something up and learn lessons, repeat next window. Hopefully they do some rapid iterating on Starship Moon missions and get some of the blowing up out of the way early.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    I expect SpaceX to be prepped to launch multiple rockets per window.
    - imglorp 6y ago
      In production, of course yes. In iterating development, you would expect one at a time so a bug would not affect a whole fleet.
- spookthesunset 6y ago
  One thing spacex seems to do better is “eye candy”. They’d make sure that copter would transmit high quality video of its flight... constraints be damned. Eye candy is very important for getting the public excited about these missions. More public excitement == more money and easier recruiting.
- cma 6y ago
  Musk said SpaceX would have a mars mission (not manned) on every earth/mars rendezvous starting in 2018. He originally said it was going to use dragon. And then he said manned missions starting in 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_program#2016_plans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_program#2016_plans They backed out of that but are still claiming they will do the manned around-the-moon trip in 2023 using Starship, and haven't backed down from point-to-point earth passenger travel by 2028 for cheaper than a business class flight. https://www.vox.com/2018/4/11/17227036/flight-spacex-gwynne-shotwell-space-ted-conference-interview https://www.vox.com/2018/4/11/17227036/flight-spacex-gwynne-... ("Shotwell estimated the ticket cost would be somewhere between economy and business class on a plane ")
travisgriggs 6y ago
Isn't "space copter" a bit of a misnomer? Isn't a copter a device with whirring blades tilted just so to cause thrust through a fluid medium (to wit, a propeller)? And isn't space defined often as that place where there is no such fluid like medium? So wouldn't it make more sense for it to be called a "Mars Copter"?
celias 6y ago
Delayed until no later than April 14 https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/291/mars-helicopter-flight-delayed-to-no-earlier-than-april-14/ https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/291/mars-...
- Octopodes 6y ago
  no earlier
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

143 points by dnetesn 6y ago

"The current plan for the first-ever attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet is [...] to take off from Mars' Jezero Crater on Sunday at 10:54 pm US eastern time (0254 GMT Monday) and hover 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface for a half-minute, NASA said." Set your alarms :) If the given time is actually take off, we can expect images from the flight at the earliest around 11:10pm (E(S?)T)/ 03:31 AM (GMT) as Earth and Mars are currently at a distance of 15 light minutes from each other. If they don't have a live feed, I would watch their Twitter account just in case. Useful links: https://mobile.twitter.com/NASAPersevere https://mobile.twitter.com/NASAPersevere https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ Edit: see reply by samizdis for another, better link

_joel 6y ago
I'm not sure there will be images that quickly, just the telemetry to confirm if it was successful or not.
- janmo 6y ago
  The bitrate Earth/Mars is very low. It will take a lot more.
  - ape4 6y ago
    I hope there is a movie eventually.
  - _joel 6y ago
    The direct earth to rover comms is slow but it's a lot quicker via MRO as it has a higher gain antenna. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/communications/ https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/communicatio...
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    Would setting up 60 Starlink satellites in a line to transmit between the two help?
    - nvahalik 6y ago
      No. It’s not a power or signal quality problem. It’s a speed-of-radio waves problem. Mars is really far away. And unfortunately we don’t have something like an Ansible to make communication instant.
      - maxov 6y ago
        I think this situation is a good illustration of latency vs bandwidth. Latency is unavoidable due to the speed of light, but there’s no physical barrier to bitrate aside from power consumption. Seems like the best bitrate we have from Mars is MRO at ~5 megabits/s which is enough for standard definition video. I’m certain we have the technology to push it higher, but it would be expensive and it seems it’s not really needed for existing projects.
        dredmorbius 6y ago
        Nit, though I'm going a bit (pun status unspecified) beyond my paygrade here: bandwidth is ultimately limited by the frequency of the trandsmission channel, though multiple channels can be multiplexed. This is the heart of Claude Shannon's work. For deep-space transmission, other factors apply, though if you're operating in the right frequencies, the background noise level is low (at least as compared to Earth where there are numerous competing signals of terrestrial origin). And whilst signal/noise ratio does impose limits, there's only so much that boosting volume dB will achieve before you hit the channel limits themselves. To increase bandwith beyond channel limits, you'd have to multiplex channels, which would involve different frequencies, different transmission routes (say, to widely-separated relay systems), or both. For physical media (e.g., fibre) this is relatively easy. For broadcast, given mass and energy budgets of spacecraft, probes, and rovers, the problems are harder. Encoding, redundancy, error-correction, and retransmit protocols can all increase the ultimate reliability of the signal, though these impose other costs, notably on bitrate or at least time until the transmission is confirmed.
samizdis 6y ago
According to NASA [1]: Perseverance is expected to obtain imagery of the flight using its Navcam and Mastcam-Z imagers, with the pictures expected to come down that evening (early morning Monday, April 12, in Southern California). The helicopter will also document the flight from its perspective, with a color image and several lower-resolution black-and-white navigation pictures possibly being available by the next morning. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-mars-helicopter-to-make-first-flight-attempt-sunday https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-mars-helicopter-to...
d--b 6y ago
They’re quite confident. 3m is pretty high. Is there a reason not to hover at 1m? Maybe the lower gravity makes it acceptable...
- birktj 6y ago
  Ground effect? But I would assume with such low atmospheric density the effect is probably not so strong.
- JshWright 6y ago
  What risks would be reduced by dropping the max altitude from 3m to 1m?
  - d--b 6y ago
    Obviously not an expert here. But here on Earth I would happily jump 1m but I'd probably break a leg from 3m. Somebody must have decided that a 3m test flight was the best option. Maybe it's because if something fails, at least they may collect 1 picture at 3m high, and that's better than 1 picture at 1m...
dima55 6y ago
They had a software glitch, and the flight was pushed back a few days while they investigate.

totetsu 6y ago

i guess i skim read news too much because i thought this happened last week.

lucb1e 6y ago
Last week I almost thought it flew, but then it actually said "survived first night" not "survived first flight". And now I spot "first Mars flight" in the headline and thought it again but... nope, now it's "ready to fly". Like, great, let me know when it does.

14 6y ago

I once witnessed a person take their brand new electric rc helicopter place it on the ground and before I knew it the thing flipped over and smashed itself on the ground. I have a lot of respect for them taking their time; this could work incredibly well or for some unforeseen reason smash into the ground. In my situation it was the loss of signal that caused the accident when the pilot admitted to accidentally shutting off his controller right at that moment.

qwertox 6y ago
RC helicopter flying has evolved into something really insane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXSfFLGeVZA&t=156s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXSfFLGeVZA&t=156s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E24JIetETAE&t=91s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E24JIetETAE&t=91s
- amiramir 6y ago
  Thanks for links. I had no idea. I tried flying an RC copter some time ago (piston engine) and getting it to hover was a nerve-wracking triumph. These folks and electric motors have taken it into another dimension.
  - spookthesunset 6y ago
    Not just electric motors but cheap, high quality flight controllers. That and kickass batteries.
  - pengaru 6y ago
    The nitro helis are no slouches either, they're all capable of insane 3D maneuvers in the right hands. The exhaust plume of a nitro doing the same things is kind of more interesting IMHO, it's like a telltale in a wind tunnel test. I'm surprised they don't put a smoke bomb on the electrics during these demos.
- xwdv 6y ago
  Oh wow, can a full size helicopter do that? Would be amazing to see at an air show.

mobilemidget 6y ago

The solar panel on the YouTube thumbnail looks quite dusty.

imglorp 6y ago
I wonder if the rotor wash will clean them off or kick up more dust and make them worse.

hnedeotes 6y ago

"Musk, get to tha choppa!"

arendtio 6y ago

When I read such articles I imagine SpaceX dropping their own rover in a few years that will autonomously drive around and gather more data in 30 days than NASA had in 30 years. However, it will also manage to get stuck/kill itself within the 30 days ;-)

imglorp 6y ago
This is my concern about SpaceX applying its superpower to Mars. Rapid prototype iteration on Mars is orbital time: you wait 2 years for the next launch window and then ~7 months for travel, blow something up and learn lessons, repeat next window. Hopefully they do some rapid iterating on Starship Moon missions and get some of the blowing up out of the way early.
- dylan604 6y ago
  I expect SpaceX to be prepped to launch multiple rockets per window.
  - imglorp 6y ago
    In production, of course yes. In iterating development, you would expect one at a time so a bug would not affect a whole fleet.
spookthesunset 6y ago
One thing spacex seems to do better is “eye candy”. They’d make sure that copter would transmit high quality video of its flight... constraints be damned. Eye candy is very important for getting the public excited about these missions. More public excitement == more money and easier recruiting.
cma 6y ago
Musk said SpaceX would have a mars mission (not manned) on every earth/mars rendezvous starting in 2018. He originally said it was going to use dragon. And then he said manned missions starting in 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_program#2016_plans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_program#2016_plans They backed out of that but are still claiming they will do the manned around-the-moon trip in 2023 using Starship, and haven't backed down from point-to-point earth passenger travel by 2028 for cheaper than a business class flight. https://www.vox.com/2018/4/11/17227036/flight-spacex-gwynne-shotwell-space-ted-conference-interview https://www.vox.com/2018/4/11/17227036/flight-spacex-gwynne-... ("Shotwell estimated the ticket cost would be somewhere between economy and business class on a plane ")

travisgriggs 6y ago

Isn't "space copter" a bit of a misnomer? Isn't a copter a device with whirring blades tilted just so to cause thrust through a fluid medium (to wit, a propeller)? And isn't space defined often as that place where there is no such fluid like medium? So wouldn't it make more sense for it to be called a "Mars Copter"?

celias 6y ago

Delayed until no later than April 14 https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/291/mars-helicopter-flight-delayed-to-no-earlier-than-april-14/ https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/291/mars-...

Octopodes 6y ago
no earlier

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]