7 ms·

Mars Ingenuity helicopter mission extended by NASA

187 points by Tarragon 5y ago

testplzignore 5y ago
Why would NASA intentionally plan to end the mission? Why not continue flying this thing until it breaks?
- jffry 5y ago
  I suspect, but don't know for sure, that this is related to funding for staffing in command centers and such. "Fly it until it breaks" means that somebody must approve an uncertain and ongoing expense without any results to show for it. If you re-frame it as an initial experimental mission, it's a smaller and more defined budgetary request. You can outline potential extra-time scenarios, but presumably those are a lot easier to get approval for after the initial window is a success. edit: It also occurs to me that framing it as a series of smaller phases with well-defined goals and benefits also makes it easier to communicate a straightforward message to the broader public about the mission.
- chrishas35 5y ago
  Helicopter requires rover to be near by as means of communications as helicopter itself can not directly communicate. Thus, it originally had a limited time as the rover needs to move on to other activities.
  - guidedlight 5y ago
    I can definitely envisage future rover missions having a helipad, of sorts. It would also allow the helicopter to charge directly from the rover, rather than from a clumsy solar panel.
    - EE84M3i 5y ago
      Couldn't this increase the chance of a collision though?
  - phire 5y ago
    But it's a Helicopter. Whenever the rover moves on, the helicopter can move to a new landing spot within range.
    - amelius 5y ago
      How far can it fly on one charge?
      - phire 5y ago
        About 600m per flight. Actually it's flight time is limited by motor heat buildup, not battery capacity. If they want to scout each landing site, that requires doing a round-trip one day to get photos and flying out the next day, which limits it to a maximum range of 300m every two days. The previous rover, Curiosity has driven an average of 8m per day (usually stopping for a few days to to science then driving in bursts of ~30m/day) Ingenuity should be able to keep up.
    - chrishas35 5y ago
      Yes, that is the plan now. It was not the original because…we’ve never flown on another planet before. It was successful so they are changing the parameters after learning more. SCIENCE!
- just_for_ing 5y ago
  Time; perseverance has had to stay close by; using our most precious resource in space —- time. It is also all about a cost benefit using the team here to plan missions; rather than shift into a new project. Basically what this says is, this little machine can still teach us something. I believe perseverance is now going to move further away; but they have proven more reliable communication links so believe they can stretch the envelope. Don’t learn a lot of this stuff until your on another planet.
- justapassenger 5y ago
  You set your initial goals low, so you can achieve them, especially if you’re depended on public funding. It’s a great successes story, if they flew and met all their original goals, and then just try to extend it. It’s much different story, if initial plan would be for example for 20 flights, but it’ll break after 15th. Then you have failure, people questioning why we spent so much money on failed mission, etc. Plus, it’s easier to ask for $x billion dollars for the mission, meet all the goals and then ask for few extra $ to support extending already proven and successful mission, then to ask for higher amount from a start.
  - ruph123 5y ago
    This. The two MER rovers were supposed to last 90 Marsian days but instead made it to 10+ years.
    - Denvercoder9 5y ago
      At least part of that was dust storms unexpectedly cleaning the solar panels.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  Planning and funding come in chunks, you get X set of people for Y months/years with access to Z resources to accomplish goals A,B,C,etc. If it's successful you're likely to get more time and some subset of the resources if there's still interesting science to be done (and there usually is, our questions are nearly endless compared to the resources available on the rovers). Doing it on an open ended mission doesn't really match how government funding works.
- fastball 5y ago
  Because NASA knows valuable it is to under-promise and over-deliver.
ClosedPistachio 5y ago
Here's the press announcement from NASA directly. It has even more information: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-to-begin-new-demonstration-phase/ https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-ingenuity-mars-hel...
waiseristy 5y ago
I'm honestly more interested in the failure mode that ingenuity eventually meets. Something lame like a human error in flight planning? Cosmic ray annihilating a critical component? Or maybe even martian dust destroying its delicate surfaces and bearings. So many new problems after only having stationary/wheeled rovers for so long
- JshWright 5y ago
  My guess is it will be a bad landing that eventually ends the mission. As they start landing on new terrain, they're eventually going to get unlucky and tip it over on landing.
  - hodgesrm 5y ago
    Wouldn't you think the rover would be able to drive over and right it if it were not too far away?
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      If there's a prop strike with the props going hundreds of miles per hour, probably not?
    - jffry 5y ago
      Ingenuity has already fulfilled its mission with overwhelming success, and anything extra now is just a bonus. Perseverance is still early in its mission. There's no way they would ever have it attempt to push Ingenuity upright, simply from a risk perspective. Why risk any complications with the primary mission, just so you can squeeze out a little more science from the expendable secondary experiment?
      - lmilcin 5y ago
        Technically, both are expendable. But I think it is not possible for Ingenuity to survive tipping over. Even if the rotors somehow survive 500km/h strike onto ground (which I find extremely unlikely) they are constructed to be perfectly balanced which is extremely important at that speed. Even slightly bent they are completely useless. It is obvious the team understand this and will not waste time on fruitless rescue mission.
sfifs 5y ago
This business of we've only planned 4-5 flights in the main mission but will extend by 30 more days seems like intentional under-committment to me. NASA seems to have done this with most of the previous rover missions as well - all of them significantly extended missions. Maybe there's politics around funding. I wouldn't be surprised if the major costs are people costs over months and sometimes years to support the science vs. the actual core mission costs but it may be a big sticker shock to ask the Congress at one go. So possibly they ask funding for a short under balled-mission (which no one really scrutinizes) and then keep getting funding extensions citing opportunity costs (the probe is already on Mars, we can get extended value etc). I can imagine there's massive politics here, so it maybe is the only smart game to play
- californical 5y ago
  I think it's probably to be careful with expectations. They didn't know how well it would really work, or if they'd kill it on a landing. NASA has been making it very clear that everything more that it does from now on is a bonus. If you keep it framed like that, it's more exciting to have a successful mission & likely to continue to get funding, than if you set high expectations and fail.
  - blueblisters 5y ago
    > If you keep it framed like that, it's more exciting to have a successful mission & likely to continue to get funding, than if you set high expectations and fail. This seems to be the more plausible reason. You keep the bar for success low so you keep getting funding for subsequent missions. Isn't that pretty much how every organization with public funding sets goals?
    - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
      I mean the low bar is that they fly three robots to Mars and two of them land safely and one of them makes multiple flights on the surface of another world so it’s a pretty high low bar!
MattGaiser 5y ago
Does NASA just set very limited goals for public performance/political reasons? As most missions seem to amazingly blow past these initial expectations. I get that NASA has some brilliant people, but I struggle to believe that the initial mission times that NASA gives are genuine estimates of what is achievable. Everything always exceeds expectations. Maybe that is just the prevailing culture as we expect everything to exceed expectations.
- bdamm 5y ago
  Quite the contrary, I believe NASA is very serious about meeting their goals. If the goal was to fly for 30 days, then they'd have a huge challenge in over-engineering the mission to ensure 30 days. This way, they can get the initial proof done (hooray!) and then run the robot to failure (which itself will be interesting.) It might fail in 30 days. It might not. Another benefit of this approach is, as with Spirit & Odyssey, they can use off-the-shelf components if they meet the initial goal.
- iscrewyou 5y ago
  Inversely, I blame congress and general population to be more critical on a mission failure (non-life threatening) than they need to. Rocket science and operating toys on another planet isn't easy. The way it is now, it's a feedback loop that's working for everyone.
johnasmith 5y ago
> The plan [...] to take 60 black-and-white images and five colour images Why black and white? Why not all colour? What constraint are they working around? Storage? Camera speed?
- galgalesh 5y ago
  Black and white pictures are generally much more precise. There's a lot of image manipulation involved in consumer grade color images (which the copter has). More info: https://youtu.be/Wah1DbFVFiY https://youtu.be/Wah1DbFVFiY

187 points by Tarragon 5y ago

testplzignore 5y ago

Why would NASA intentionally plan to end the mission? Why not continue flying this thing until it breaks?

jffry 5y ago
I suspect, but don't know for sure, that this is related to funding for staffing in command centers and such. "Fly it until it breaks" means that somebody must approve an uncertain and ongoing expense without any results to show for it. If you re-frame it as an initial experimental mission, it's a smaller and more defined budgetary request. You can outline potential extra-time scenarios, but presumably those are a lot easier to get approval for after the initial window is a success. edit: It also occurs to me that framing it as a series of smaller phases with well-defined goals and benefits also makes it easier to communicate a straightforward message to the broader public about the mission.
chrishas35 5y ago
Helicopter requires rover to be near by as means of communications as helicopter itself can not directly communicate. Thus, it originally had a limited time as the rover needs to move on to other activities.
- guidedlight 5y ago
  I can definitely envisage future rover missions having a helipad, of sorts. It would also allow the helicopter to charge directly from the rover, rather than from a clumsy solar panel.
  - EE84M3i 5y ago
    Couldn't this increase the chance of a collision though?
- phire 5y ago
  But it's a Helicopter. Whenever the rover moves on, the helicopter can move to a new landing spot within range.
  - amelius 5y ago
    How far can it fly on one charge?
    - phire 5y ago
      About 600m per flight. Actually it's flight time is limited by motor heat buildup, not battery capacity. If they want to scout each landing site, that requires doing a round-trip one day to get photos and flying out the next day, which limits it to a maximum range of 300m every two days. The previous rover, Curiosity has driven an average of 8m per day (usually stopping for a few days to to science then driving in bursts of ~30m/day) Ingenuity should be able to keep up.
  - chrishas35 5y ago
    Yes, that is the plan now. It was not the original because…we’ve never flown on another planet before. It was successful so they are changing the parameters after learning more. SCIENCE!
just_for_ing 5y ago
Time; perseverance has had to stay close by; using our most precious resource in space —- time. It is also all about a cost benefit using the team here to plan missions; rather than shift into a new project. Basically what this says is, this little machine can still teach us something. I believe perseverance is now going to move further away; but they have proven more reliable communication links so believe they can stretch the envelope. Don’t learn a lot of this stuff until your on another planet.
justapassenger 5y ago
You set your initial goals low, so you can achieve them, especially if you’re depended on public funding. It’s a great successes story, if they flew and met all their original goals, and then just try to extend it. It’s much different story, if initial plan would be for example for 20 flights, but it’ll break after 15th. Then you have failure, people questioning why we spent so much money on failed mission, etc. Plus, it’s easier to ask for $x billion dollars for the mission, meet all the goals and then ask for few extra $ to support extending already proven and successful mission, then to ask for higher amount from a start.
- ruph123 5y ago
  This. The two MER rovers were supposed to last 90 Marsian days but instead made it to 10+ years.
  - Denvercoder9 5y ago
    At least part of that was dust storms unexpectedly cleaning the solar panels.
rtkwe 5y ago
Planning and funding come in chunks, you get X set of people for Y months/years with access to Z resources to accomplish goals A,B,C,etc. If it's successful you're likely to get more time and some subset of the resources if there's still interesting science to be done (and there usually is, our questions are nearly endless compared to the resources available on the rovers). Doing it on an open ended mission doesn't really match how government funding works.
fastball 5y ago
Because NASA knows valuable it is to under-promise and over-deliver.

ClosedPistachio 5y ago

Here's the press announcement from NASA directly. It has even more information: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-to-begin-new-demonstration-phase/ https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-ingenuity-mars-hel...

waiseristy 5y ago

I'm honestly more interested in the failure mode that ingenuity eventually meets. Something lame like a human error in flight planning? Cosmic ray annihilating a critical component? Or maybe even martian dust destroying its delicate surfaces and bearings. So many new problems after only having stationary/wheeled rovers for so long

JshWright 5y ago
My guess is it will be a bad landing that eventually ends the mission. As they start landing on new terrain, they're eventually going to get unlucky and tip it over on landing.
- hodgesrm 5y ago
  Wouldn't you think the rover would be able to drive over and right it if it were not too far away?
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    If there's a prop strike with the props going hundreds of miles per hour, probably not?
  - jffry 5y ago
    Ingenuity has already fulfilled its mission with overwhelming success, and anything extra now is just a bonus. Perseverance is still early in its mission. There's no way they would ever have it attempt to push Ingenuity upright, simply from a risk perspective. Why risk any complications with the primary mission, just so you can squeeze out a little more science from the expendable secondary experiment?
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      Technically, both are expendable. But I think it is not possible for Ingenuity to survive tipping over. Even if the rotors somehow survive 500km/h strike onto ground (which I find extremely unlikely) they are constructed to be perfectly balanced which is extremely important at that speed. Even slightly bent they are completely useless. It is obvious the team understand this and will not waste time on fruitless rescue mission.

sfifs 5y ago

This business of we've only planned 4-5 flights in the main mission but will extend by 30 more days seems like intentional under-committment to me. NASA seems to have done this with most of the previous rover missions as well - all of them significantly extended missions. Maybe there's politics around funding. I wouldn't be surprised if the major costs are people costs over months and sometimes years to support the science vs. the actual core mission costs but it may be a big sticker shock to ask the Congress at one go. So possibly they ask funding for a short under balled-mission (which no one really scrutinizes) and then keep getting funding extensions citing opportunity costs (the probe is already on Mars, we can get extended value etc). I can imagine there's massive politics here, so it maybe is the only smart game to play

californical 5y ago
I think it's probably to be careful with expectations. They didn't know how well it would really work, or if they'd kill it on a landing. NASA has been making it very clear that everything more that it does from now on is a bonus. If you keep it framed like that, it's more exciting to have a successful mission & likely to continue to get funding, than if you set high expectations and fail.
- blueblisters 5y ago
  > If you keep it framed like that, it's more exciting to have a successful mission & likely to continue to get funding, than if you set high expectations and fail. This seems to be the more plausible reason. You keep the bar for success low so you keep getting funding for subsequent missions. Isn't that pretty much how every organization with public funding sets goals?
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    I mean the low bar is that they fly three robots to Mars and two of them land safely and one of them makes multiple flights on the surface of another world so it’s a pretty high low bar!

MattGaiser 5y ago

Does NASA just set very limited goals for public performance/political reasons? As most missions seem to amazingly blow past these initial expectations. I get that NASA has some brilliant people, but I struggle to believe that the initial mission times that NASA gives are genuine estimates of what is achievable. Everything always exceeds expectations. Maybe that is just the prevailing culture as we expect everything to exceed expectations.

bdamm 5y ago
Quite the contrary, I believe NASA is very serious about meeting their goals. If the goal was to fly for 30 days, then they'd have a huge challenge in over-engineering the mission to ensure 30 days. This way, they can get the initial proof done (hooray!) and then run the robot to failure (which itself will be interesting.) It might fail in 30 days. It might not. Another benefit of this approach is, as with Spirit & Odyssey, they can use off-the-shelf components if they meet the initial goal.
iscrewyou 5y ago
Inversely, I blame congress and general population to be more critical on a mission failure (non-life threatening) than they need to. Rocket science and operating toys on another planet isn't easy. The way it is now, it's a feedback loop that's working for everyone.

johnasmith 5y ago

> The plan [...] to take 60 black-and-white images and five colour images Why black and white? Why not all colour? What constraint are they working around? Storage? Camera speed?

galgalesh 5y ago
Black and white pictures are generally much more precise. There's a lot of image manipulation involved in consumer grade color images (which the copter has). More info: https://youtu.be/Wah1DbFVFiY https://youtu.be/Wah1DbFVFiY