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They should definitely drive the rover to see what happened. Question: Can Ingenuity autorotate to a landing in the Martian atmosphere?

by chiph 3y ago

beej71 3y ago
I'd bet no, given how thin the atmosphere is and how fast they have to spin the rotors to stay aloft.
dredmorbius 3y ago
From TFA: "Perseverance is currently out of line-of-sight with Ingenuity, but the team could consider driving closer for a visual inspection," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages both robots' missions, said via X on Friday. Close inspection may not be advisable due to difficult terrain: <https://mastodon.social/@65dBnoise/111789132803382896 https://mastodon.social/@65dBnoise/111789132803382896>
- zokier 3y ago
  There seems to be some spots almost directly south (-southeast) from the landing site (300-400m away maybe?) that look like they would be reachable without descending down to the riverbed and ripples. And I think that's the general direction Percy is going towards anyways (mostly west), so it wouldn't even be a huge detour to go check it out. I'd guess it would be mostly matter of how good of a path would be available there, but eyeballing it seems relatively benign.
- secondcoming 3y ago
  How do they know where it really is? There's no GPS on Mars. Couldn't winds have blown it off course each time they flew it?
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    It has cameras, they'd be able to compare terrain features against photos from Perseverance and flyovers by MRO.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Interesting question. Principally image-based location tracking, though also with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and laser rangefinder, all off-the-shelf components. See: "How Ingenuity Knows Where It Is And Where It's Going" <https://picknik.ai/slam/localization/state%20estimation/mars%20helicopter/2021/05/10/Ingenuity.html https://picknik.ai/slam/localization/state%20estimation/mars...>

They should definitely drive the rover to see what happened. Question: Can Ingenuity autorotate to a landing in the Martian atmosphere?

by chiph 3y ago

They should definitely drive the rover to see what happened. Question: Can Ingenuity autorotate to a landing in the Martian atmosphere?

beej71 3y ago

I'd bet no, given how thin the atmosphere is and how fast they have to spin the rotors to stay aloft.

dredmorbius 3y ago

From TFA: "Perseverance is currently out of line-of-sight with Ingenuity, but the team could consider driving closer for a visual inspection," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages both robots' missions, said via X on Friday. Close inspection may not be advisable due to difficult terrain: <https://mastodon.social/@65dBnoise/111789132803382896 https://mastodon.social/@65dBnoise/111789132803382896>

zokier 3y ago
There seems to be some spots almost directly south (-southeast) from the landing site (300-400m away maybe?) that look like they would be reachable without descending down to the riverbed and ripples. And I think that's the general direction Percy is going towards anyways (mostly west), so it wouldn't even be a huge detour to go check it out. I'd guess it would be mostly matter of how good of a path would be available there, but eyeballing it seems relatively benign.
secondcoming 3y ago
How do they know where it really is? There's no GPS on Mars. Couldn't winds have blown it off course each time they flew it?
- dotnet00 3y ago
  It has cameras, they'd be able to compare terrain features against photos from Perseverance and flyovers by MRO.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Interesting question. Principally image-based location tracking, though also with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and laser rangefinder, all off-the-shelf components. See: "How Ingenuity Knows Where It Is And Where It's Going" <https://picknik.ai/slam/localization/state%20estimation/mars%20helicopter/2021/05/10/Ingenuity.html https://picknik.ai/slam/localization/state%20estimation/mars...>