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After the planned flight program concludes, would it be possible to have Ingenuity follow Perseverance on the rover's travels? Perseverance moves pretty slowly

After the planned flight program concludes, would it be possible to have Ingenuity follow Perseverance on the rover's travels? Perseverance moves pretty slowly - it would seem straightforward to have Ingenuity do a daily catch-up flight to stay within comm range of the rover. Having demo'ed flight successfully, it would seem useful to keep using the helicopter to gather more engineering data.

MontagFTB 5y ago
While I agree the idea would be novel and intriguing, it’s trying to keep alive an 84M experiment that was a footnote on a multi-billion-dollar expedition. I don’t think anyone would want to jeopardize the latter for the former, no matter how enticing.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  How would it jeopardize the rover?
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    Potentially crash into the rover. The more flights it takes the more likely it would eventually fail and it will not crash gracefully. Considering that other than would it actually fly and the coolness factor there isn’t much scientific value stemming from repeat flights as it carries little to no scientific instruments the risk even if it’s relatively low isn’t really worth it.
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      This seems extreme and overly cautious, I think logically not sound. If there was a risk of the helicopter colliding, they wouldn't have done this project in the first place! Rover can be far away from the area of operation of the Helicopter. Even if it crashes, it weighs next to nothing and despite of its blades spinning at 2900 RPM, it has very little kinetic energy if impacted compared to the amount of abuse the rover had to endure when landing.
      - dogma1138 5y ago
        It has a mass of 2kg, and as you said two sets of carbon fiber rotors that are operating at nearly 3000 RPMs that’s more than enough to do some damage to Percy it can easily break an antenna, arm or the mast camera as well as damage other experiments. There is a very big difference between the landing shock when the rover was locked down and sensitive equipment protected and a flying lawnmower blades impacting sensitive equipment it wouldn’t surprise me it much of the rover skin is paper thin so you are potentially even at a higher risk here.
      - stevenhuang 5y ago
        This sounds like someone who has never flown an RC plane before. Nevermind the fact you think it won't damage the rover, which is beyond strange. The forces when landing have been modelled and taken into account, the helicopter crashing into the rover is not. If any one of the instruments is hit at the wrong angle, it's not hard to see it will be permanently knocked out.
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      Is Ingenuity's camera good enough to provide navigation photos for human mission planners?
      - dogma1138 5y ago
        It will be used for that too yes, also any camera is good enough for mission planning the we use the Mars orbiter as well as probably photos dating back to Viking still for mission planning since any photo is better than no photo. But the question is would it be worth the risk and would multiple flights produce that much more coverage given just how little distance ingenuity can actually leapfrog in a given flight. It’s main goal was a test bed for potential rotary aircraft on Mars as well as a test bed of the rapid development program that enabled NASA and JPL to build it relatively for so little money and so fast. It did its job I don’t really know if there’s that much more value from keeping Percy in range to do more flights since ingenuity can only be controlled through Percy.
jvanderbot 5y ago
I think I remember that Percy will, at speed, outrun the copter on a day-over-day basis. It's quite a bit faster on daily average mostly due to much longer drives that are possible with the new version.
_rpd 5y ago
My understanding is that Ingenuity will act as a scout for the rover, to make the rover’s investigations even more productive.
- Keysh 5y ago
  No; that’s a potential use of upgraded, more capable rotorcraft in future missions.
carlosdp 5y ago
The copter won't last very long on the Martian surface. It's using non-radiation protected hardware (which allows the software to be much more advanced that what we'd typically send to the planet).
- zarzavat 5y ago
  I'm curious what kind of permanent damage radiation causes to hardware? We hear about cosmic rays flipping bits in non-ECC RAM but that would generally be fixed by a reboot.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    I guess maybe bits will get flipped in the saved program code and operating systems also? Thus rendering the device inoperable since there's no way to perform a reformat/reinstall
shantara 5y ago
I wonder if the team has anything planned for Ingenuity after completion of the mandatory mission program. Something that could obtain as much data as possible in the shortest possible time while not particularly caring about the survival of the helicopter itself. Like, a flight to a 100 meter altitude, or something similar.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Yes, they did say they want to find its limits even if that means crashing it. I don't think they'll just turn it off still in working order and abandon it. They didn't do that with any of the rovers, after-all.
ilkkao 5y ago
I hope too it can keep following the rover for some time. Hardest part might be to alter Perseverance's schedule accordingly I guess. Additional data transfers need to be planned. Preferably Perseverance needs to take some images during every flight and so on.
xtiansimon 5y ago
Watching the first press conference there was obvious disagreement about how the mission will evolve after these initial flights. I gathered the overall mission is to maximize the understanding of the copter’s flight characteristics and other issues, as they develop, regarding flight on Mars—to the point of the copters destruction.

MontagFTB 5y ago

While I agree the idea would be novel and intriguing, it’s trying to keep alive an 84M experiment that was a footnote on a multi-billion-dollar expedition. I don’t think anyone would want to jeopardize the latter for the former, no matter how enticing.

systemvoltage 5y ago
How would it jeopardize the rover?
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Potentially crash into the rover. The more flights it takes the more likely it would eventually fail and it will not crash gracefully. Considering that other than would it actually fly and the coolness factor there isn’t much scientific value stemming from repeat flights as it carries little to no scientific instruments the risk even if it’s relatively low isn’t really worth it.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    This seems extreme and overly cautious, I think logically not sound. If there was a risk of the helicopter colliding, they wouldn't have done this project in the first place! Rover can be far away from the area of operation of the Helicopter. Even if it crashes, it weighs next to nothing and despite of its blades spinning at 2900 RPM, it has very little kinetic energy if impacted compared to the amount of abuse the rover had to endure when landing.
    - dogma1138 5y ago
      It has a mass of 2kg, and as you said two sets of carbon fiber rotors that are operating at nearly 3000 RPMs that’s more than enough to do some damage to Percy it can easily break an antenna, arm or the mast camera as well as damage other experiments. There is a very big difference between the landing shock when the rover was locked down and sensitive equipment protected and a flying lawnmower blades impacting sensitive equipment it wouldn’t surprise me it much of the rover skin is paper thin so you are potentially even at a higher risk here.
    - stevenhuang 5y ago
      This sounds like someone who has never flown an RC plane before. Nevermind the fact you think it won't damage the rover, which is beyond strange. The forces when landing have been modelled and taken into account, the helicopter crashing into the rover is not. If any one of the instruments is hit at the wrong angle, it's not hard to see it will be permanently knocked out.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    Is Ingenuity's camera good enough to provide navigation photos for human mission planners?
    - dogma1138 5y ago
      It will be used for that too yes, also any camera is good enough for mission planning the we use the Mars orbiter as well as probably photos dating back to Viking still for mission planning since any photo is better than no photo. But the question is would it be worth the risk and would multiple flights produce that much more coverage given just how little distance ingenuity can actually leapfrog in a given flight. It’s main goal was a test bed for potential rotary aircraft on Mars as well as a test bed of the rapid development program that enabled NASA and JPL to build it relatively for so little money and so fast. It did its job I don’t really know if there’s that much more value from keeping Percy in range to do more flights since ingenuity can only be controlled through Percy.

jvanderbot 5y ago

I think I remember that Percy will, at speed, outrun the copter on a day-over-day basis. It's quite a bit faster on daily average mostly due to much longer drives that are possible with the new version.

_rpd 5y ago

My understanding is that Ingenuity will act as a scout for the rover, to make the rover’s investigations even more productive.

Keysh 5y ago
No; that’s a potential use of upgraded, more capable rotorcraft in future missions.

carlosdp 5y ago

The copter won't last very long on the Martian surface. It's using non-radiation protected hardware (which allows the software to be much more advanced that what we'd typically send to the planet).

zarzavat 5y ago
I'm curious what kind of permanent damage radiation causes to hardware? We hear about cosmic rays flipping bits in non-ECC RAM but that would generally be fixed by a reboot.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  I guess maybe bits will get flipped in the saved program code and operating systems also? Thus rendering the device inoperable since there's no way to perform a reformat/reinstall

shantara 5y ago

I wonder if the team has anything planned for Ingenuity after completion of the mandatory mission program. Something that could obtain as much data as possible in the shortest possible time while not particularly caring about the survival of the helicopter itself. Like, a flight to a 100 meter altitude, or something similar.

exporectomy 5y ago
Yes, they did say they want to find its limits even if that means crashing it. I don't think they'll just turn it off still in working order and abandon it. They didn't do that with any of the rovers, after-all.

ilkkao 5y ago

I hope too it can keep following the rover for some time. Hardest part might be to alter Perseverance's schedule accordingly I guess. Additional data transfers need to be planned. Preferably Perseverance needs to take some images during every flight and so on.

xtiansimon 5y ago

Watching the first press conference there was obvious disagreement about how the mission will evolve after these initial flights. I gathered the overall mission is to maximize the understanding of the copter’s flight characteristics and other issues, as they develop, regarding flight on Mars—to the point of the copters destruction.