12 ms·
First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rho4 6y agoCountdown to when the take off is supposed to happen sorely missing.
- Amorymeltzer 6y agoEstimated receipt of flight data is/was 6:15 EDT (10:15 UTC), which is what this livestream is for. The flight itself was scheduled to take place three hours prior at 3:30 EDT. As of this posting (roughly 6:30 EDT/10:30 UTC) they "are moments away from receiving" the data.
- Amorymeltzer 6y agoEdit around 6:55 EDT: Data received, confirmation of flight. They've got the video! Relevant spot in the stream: https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2265 https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2265
- T-A 6y agoIt's already supposed to have happened, they are waiting for the data: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/science/nasa-mars-helicopter.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/science/nasa-mars-helicop...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hellbannedguy 6y agoA little video editing would be nice. It's almost like NASA doesn't realize many people watch these videos. I like watching behind the sceen stuff, but I also want NASA to come off in the best light. The video had a production value of a subpar PBS late night video. NASA has a duty to promote the agency too. There's a PR value to everything, especially when using public money. (I want to give NASA more funds some days. Other days, I would rather give it to Musk. I'm not sure anymore who will use the money better.)
- BigMajestic 6y agoWould you rather want these funds to be spent on PR team and video editing or on missions?
- waheoo 6y agoI'd rather NASA had the funds for a little production value. You can make the same whataboutist argument for why we shouldn't even be on Mars.
- insert_coin 6y agoRelax a little, it literally just happened, better things are coming. And don't watch the live feed if what you want is a Hollywood production.
- jordanpg 6y agoWhy does the downlink operator have what appears to be Github open? He seems to be carefully monitoring it. Is raw data going straight to Github?
- potiuper 6y agohttps://github.com/nasa/fprime https://github.com/nasa/fprime
- erk__ 6y agoSeems like they are using a github issue to stream the data to, probably through a bot of some kind, I cannot find the issue where it is going on so I imagine it is on a private instance
- 74d-fe6-2c6 6y agohttps://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=1958 https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=1958 Here it says "Enterprise".
- mino 6y agoYes, if you look closely at their shell you'll see they are calling some `python3` command to get/push/(?) stuff into that PR.
- mseepgood 6y agoSo he can file an issue if something goes wrong.
- 74d-fe6-2c6 6y agoI'm also curious to understand more about how Git comes into play here.
- noisy_boy 6y agoProbably using the issue as an aggregation landing page. Bots can post to it, details can be manually added too, in-built support for media, integration with version control and ability to leverage in-built Github workflow. Looks like a smart way to use existing infrastructure.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- xtiansimon 6y agoWoot!
- Torkel 6y agoYay! Cool that they made it :) The video feed had a "university team" feel to it that was sort of unexpected and nice :) I was surprised to see the tack sharp shadow on the image from the downwards facing navigation camera. My thinking was that the rotors needed to spin way faster on this drone than on a drone on earth, because of how thin the atmosphere is on mars. But the sharpness seems to indicate that the rotor speed is perhaps all that different! Or perhaps the whole thing is just so light that there is not so much mass to lift up?
- eddyg 6y agoThe two rotor blades are just under 4 feet long, and spin in opposite directions at 2,500rpm. The rotor tips are moving at about 2/3 of the speed of sound on Mars. (For ref, Ingenuity weighed 4 pounds on Earth, so about 1.5 pounds in Martian gravity.)
- Torkel 6y agoGood data! Nice how martian gravity makes things lighter. If I'm doing the math correctly I get to to be an exposure time of around 0.1-0.5 ms. Fast!, but not unheard of fast :)
- JKCalhoun 6y agoYeah, lighter but an atmosphere so thin it's harder to get lift. I wonderful aircraft if it is a net gain or loss — Mars vs. Earth.
- walrus01 6y agoThe Black and white bottom facing camera may have a very short exposure time and a global (not rolling) shutter.
- techdragon 6y agoAwesome! Well deserved congratulations all round to the team! Dare mighty things indeed. Only negative thing I can think of is that I really hope the Perseverance rover has better video onboard just not transmitted yet. Maybe they will release it during the press conference later today. The one they showed was a little clipped. It had spin up. then it sort of cuts to the mid flight and then cuts to the spin down... all the takeoff and touchdown excitement is totally missing from the video they showed. If I didn't know as much as I do about how image telemetry is handled... I'd actually have thought it was broken, thats how abrupt the transition is in the video.
- _rpd 6y agoYes, higher res, higher fps is coming, but will take a couple of days. I hope the landing was smooth and we can look forward to lots of aerial photos from Ingenuity.
- techdragon 6y agoAs I expected, I just didn't catch any mention of this during the Live stream, I figured I might have missed some mention of it since since I tuned in right about when they started getting data frames from the DSN. I figured the team had decided to uplink only the most essential frames for this test flight (spin up, hover, and spin down) and send the low-res preview versions of them back in order to get the data back as fast as possible before a much slower upload of the full mastcam higher resolution video frames. Whats extra amazing here is this is High Definition (possibly even in 3D) video sent to us from a nuclear powered rover on Mars!
- Amorymeltzer 6y agoRoughly the start of success from the livestream: https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2265 https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2265 Video (of the video from Perseverance): https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1384099167832735748 https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1384099167832735748 (Better version from the livestream in child comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26861334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26861334)
- kubanczyk 6y agoLivestream timestamp of the video from Perseverance: https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2447 https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2447 (slightly better quality)
- tkinom 6y agoCan't wait until the SpaceX's Starship land the next gen Mars Helicopter that might be 10-20x bigger in 2-4 years.
- spookthesunset 6y agoKnowing spacex, they will deck that thing out with 4K video even if it means dropping a few satellites into Martian orbit to act as relays. My understanding is that video requires power to transcode and compress, and power is a scarce resource. This is especially true on ingenuity, which is powered by six 18650 batteries. And most of that power is dumped into just keeping it warm enough to function, not into actually flying. https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_AIAA2018_0023.pdf https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_A...
- rvz 6y agoThis first successful flight on Mars is literally out of this world. Well done to all those involved.
- ur-whale 6y agoFunny how there seems to be neither dust on landing or take-off.
- pferde 6y agoIt may have something to do with the fact that Mars' atmosphere is very, very thin (I think they mentioned it's 1% density of Earth's), so there are much fewer particles hitting the ground and pushing the dust, compared to e.g. a small hobby drone taking off here on Earth. I'm sure there was some dust thrown up in the air, but probably not enough to be seen against the background.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoConversely, plenty of dust was blown around during the landing of the rover, but that was mostly from the rocket engines' exhausts.
- sevencolors 6y agoIt's probably a video issue, this preview video only has a few frames per second i'm guessing. As we see it pop up and then it's back on the ground
- thelean12 6y agoBeyond the video issue, I wonder if a bunch was already blown up during the test spins before the main flight.
- xioxox 6y agoCool! I wonder why balloons have not been used much on other planets? Is it the weight of the gas? The USSR had the the Vega 1 and 2 balloons on Venus, but presumably further missions could be pretty useful for studying planetary atmospheres, even for gas giants.
- pjc50 6y agoThe gas has to be lighter than the atmosphere of the target planet. For planets with very thin atmospheres or planets with mostly-hydrogen atmospheres, that is hard to achieve. That leaves basically Venus and maybe Titan?
- xioxox 6y agoOf course! Presumably you could use heated gases in the gas giants (like hot air balloons). I found this rather old JPL page which suggests it could be possible: https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/adv_tech/balloons/outer_jupisat.htm https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/adv_tech/balloons/outer_jupisat.ht...
- skykooler 6y agoActually, on Mars it's relatively easy to have a gas be lighter than the atmosphere; the atmosphere is mostly CO2, so most common gases, including nitrogen, are lighter than it. The problem is that since the air is very thin, you don't get much lift for a given volume. So for Mars you need a very big balloon, but it can be filled with almost anything. (Side note: balloons have actually been used on Venus already, on the Vega missions!)
- elihu 6y agoA clarification: technically, filling a balloon with a lighter gas is actually pretty easy: the pressure inside the balloon is almost the same as that outside (if the balloon is made of a non-stretchy material like mylar that doesn't compress the air), so all you need to have the inside be lighter is to use a less dense gas. Mars atmosphere is mostly CO2, so even nitrogen could work as a lifting gas. The problem of course is that while it's easy to use a gas that's less dense than Mars' atmosphere, it can't be very much less dense because you're starting from a very low density. So, you'd need a huge volume in order to lift anything substantial. edit: looks like a sibling comment said the same thing first..
- pomian 6y agoWhat a treat! A very slow and quiet drama, presented by a tight group, a team, of geeks. Appreciated by everyone watching. Looking forward to more.
- bregma 6y agoWhy are they all in prison?
- insert_coin 6y agoFreedom means not caring what others think or do. Maybe it is you the one trapped in a confrontation prison.
- qwertox 6y agoIt made me so sad seeing them cheering and clapping, but not getting up and hugging each other :( So much happiness without the ability to vent it. Such a historical moment.
- runawaybottle 6y agoYou trying to get men fired?
- TekMol 6y agoFunny. When I watched that sequence, I was thinking the opposite. That the length of the clapping and cheering would be "too much" for me. I imagined myself being in that room. I probably would have beed very happy, smiling and showing a "thumbs up" sign or something. But I would not clap or cheer. And I certainly would not want to be hugged by some scientist next to me :) How do other engineers here on HN feel about it?
- citizenkeen 6y agoIf I just got a helicopter up and running on another planet? I'd be hugging everybody.
- guenthert 6y agoExtraordinary achievements call for extraordinary celebrations. I'd expected champagne bottles.
- publicola1990 6y agoI do feel that cheering and clapping was a bit too much for me. If I was involved in something like this, I would have rather preferred a quiet moment of reflection. Moreover such complex missions can go either way, I think it is perhaps better to be even-tempered and business like about it.
- progman32 6y agoOne year ago I'd have agreed. Today? I'd be running around like an excited child, given half a chance. Probably hugging people I know are comfortable with it. I recognized I really do like that energy, and I only live once. Not saying people who prefer a more restrained celebration are not valid in their preference! Everyone is a little different, and that is a good thing. At my workplace we like to have multiple ways to celebrate a milestone, because it's important that everyone can participate if they want. For example, we might have a team lunch/party (pre covid) for folks who like that, but also, say, personalized notes sent out, or office posters made of the achievement with participants' signatures on it (optional), and companywide announcements (again, representation optional). For the record the only movie that routinely tears me up is Apollo 13. Specifically, when they land, and the people in Mission Control are shown. Some of those people have a lifelong bond because of that event, I'm sure. That's important to me.
- ilkkao 6y agoIs it too optimistic to hope that flights will keep the solar panels clean and Ingenuity could follow the rover some months.
- unnouinceput 6y agoYes. They said that the Mars window is around 40 something days, and their schedule is around ~5, increasing in difficulty, flights. I suspect after that it will be tucked under the rover. But in meanwhile will be more videos so we have something to look for to in near future. History in the making nevertheless.
- sephamorr 6y agoThermally, the helicopter cannot keep itself warm through winter due to decreasing solar power generation. Over the next few months, as the solar generation goes down leading into winter, the energy available for flight (rather than survival) will decrease and go negative at some point.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ourmandave 6y agoWell this changes the whole plot to The Martian if he can just get Domino's delivered.
- JulianMorrison 6y agoYeah, but the delivery fee is a doozy.
- ourmandave 6y agoThat's one small pepperoni for a man, one giant tip for mankind.
- _joel 6y agoMight be cold by the time it gets there though
- chronogram 6y agoThere’s a Korean food delivery commercial with just that theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQGtK41Wj3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQGtK41Wj3o
- ourmandave 6y agoI had to look it up because I could only see IGHTY THINGS, but the text on the wall is JPL's mantra, "DARE MIGHTY THINGS". Indeed.
- JulianMorrison 6y agoOr in this case, flighty things.
- ourmandave 6y agoHow long have they all been living on Martian time? And how much longer will they have to stay on it?
- itissid 6y agoThere is a really good explanation of this machine on Veritasium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM
- trothamel 6y agoFrom https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-succeeds-in-historic-first-flight https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopte... , the International Civil Aviation organization gave Ingenuity the the designator the aircraft type designator IGY, the call sign INGENUITY, and designated the Wright Brothers Field in Jezero Crater on mars as JZRO. Hopefully that last one sticks when commercial service begins.
- Clewza313 6y agoThe first letters (at least one, often but not always two) of any ICAO airport code represent the country it's in, and by convenient coincidence, the only three unused letters are I, J and X. I personally would probably have plumped for X as in extraterrestrial, but Xxxx codes are already frequently used for unofficial codes like train stations, so maybe someday Mars will indeed be J or JZ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code
- timr 6y agoTIL: according the the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the copter is carrying a little piece of fabric from the Wright flyer: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-holds-piece-wright-brothers-history-180977381/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mars-helicopter-in...
- nickthemagicman 6y agoEveryone on that team looks really young. These either age discrimination or people on that team use really good moisturizers. I kid. Kudos to the team for launching a flying rover on Mars!
- behnamoh 6y agoThe universe is 13.8 billion years old. It took about 7.3 billion years for the Earth to be formed. Then it took roughly 4.48 billion years for the first Hominins to wander on the planet. They evolved for almost 5.998 million years. Then they had small civilizations in the past 0.002 million years. They started flying in the past 0.0001 million years. 0.00005 million years later they landed on the moon. Almost 0.00005 million years after that, the flew a machine over another planet. Let that sink in.
- barbazoo 6y agoI get your point, it's magnificent. But something seems off with those numbers: 7.3+4.48+5.998 > 13.8
- giantrobot 6y agoPrimates number one! Suck it fish and reptiles!
- fnord77 6y agoand then .00015 million years after they died out by the billions and reverted back to the stone age due to the pollution they emitted.
- throwawayboise 6y agoPretty low faith that all that ingenuity will save us?
- graderjs 6y agoIt's cool. And surprising to me how young the team is. Contrast to the other videos I've seen of NASA "mission control" form the 60s etc. Something transformational for me seeing this group of super young people achieve so much. Inspiring and hopeful and more :)
- pelagicdev 6y agoThe average age of mission control during the Apollo missions was around 26...
- throwawayboise 6y agoPeople looked older then, IMO. They smoked, had neat haircuts, and wore shirts and ties to work.
- standardUser 6y agoOwned a home, had 3 kids and were looking forward to their 10 year high school reunions.
- graderjs 6y agoOuch. Right in the feels. Americana nostalgia, landscape of broken dreams song plays in background, fluro lights flicker on and off in the abandoned mall, an empty parking lot, Twinkies wrapper tumbling in the wind, somewhere static from the last analog TV purrs then switches off forever... Ask not for whom the generational bell tolls... Second that about looked older... Maybe it was the super8 video quality
- seoaeu 6y agoAt various points they show people joining remotely via video chat. Perhaps the people in the control room self selected based on covid risk?
- graderjs 6y ago
- baggy_trough 6y agoWouldn't the sky crane be truthfully described as a "powered, controlled flight on another planet"?
- ncmncm 6y agoYesss... But they probably are only counting aerodynamic flight. I wish there was more about what it did after it dropped its load. Did it just fly until fuel ran out? Or fly for a minute and shut off? I think they did say it crashed, which was probably unnecessary, considering how far away it got. It probably could have set down neatly 100 ft away.
- zoomablemind 6y agoCongrats to the whole Ingenuity team! Exciting to see so many young faces and women on the team. Also, I read up on the project lead MiMi Aung [1] - she's very insipring. I remember seeing her interview at the time when the rover was about to land, so much anticipation and hope. Now, so much excitement is truly uplifting. Congrats! [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiMi_Aung https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiMi_Aung
- macinjosh 6y agoThe engineering nerd factor is huge here and this is an amazing feat! Congrats to all involved. I am curious what the importance of this is. What overall goal is this research contributing to? Is a mars landing system using "helicopter" style powered flight system the ultimate goal?
- jjuhl 6y agoI wonder if there's a public repository of the kernel source deployed on the helicopter. I'd love to see if any of the code I've contributed just flew on Mars
- lazeebee 6y agoCheck out this Github list of all repos included in the helicopter: https://docs.github.com/en/github/setting-up-and-managing-your-github-profile/personalizing-your-profile#list-of-qualifying-repositories-for-mars-2020-helicopter-contributor-badge https://docs.github.com/en/github/setting-up-and-managing-yo...
- jpdus 6y agoBetter quality video of the flight now on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMnOo2zcjXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMnOo2zcjXA
- drummer 6y agoThis was painful to watch. The team can fly a drone on mars but apparently are so stupid not to realize there is zero science behind them wearing masks. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/
- yazaddaruvala 6y agoWhile I believe that masks do help reduce the spread of viruses, I'll play along that there is no science to back up that statement. Humans do not only do things because they "make sense" / "scientifically proven", many times we just do it because its low effort and helps make other people feel comfortable. Its like smiling when you see a stranger, or saying good morning to someone. There is no sense to it, you don't plan to stop and chat. However, it breeds a comfort (and eventually a distant camaraderie) because a greeting means a lot to them. Typically a greeting signals (sometimes falsely) a lack of malicious intent. Given they are a team all sitting in the same room, even if one of them is more comfortable with masks on (logically or illogically), its just a kind thing to do for each other. Much like choosing to keep your cellphone off in a theatre, choosing not to smoke while in a group on non-smokers (outdoors or indoors), choosing to let everyone else exit an elevator before you, or choosing to respond to a comment you know is likely better left ignored :). I wish you the best of luck in the future, and hope (masks or no masks - whatever strategy to help others you choose to use) you use some small amount of your time/effort to help make other people's lives a bit more comfortable.
- dang 6y ago"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- yazaddaruvala 6y agoFair. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you for the link :)
- dang 6y ago
- tectonic 6y agoSo, so cool! Congrats to everyone involved! I recently wrote a short piece about Ingenuity’s COTS hardware, its open source software, and its radiation mitigation techniques: https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2021-02-24-Issue-105/#ingenuity https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2021-02-24-Issue-105/#ingen...