Looking really good for Sunday night flight with overnight confirmation into Monday:
https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere
Inginuity propellers tested at 50 RPMs.
Percy repositioning for a good view of the festivities.
Larry
DevilHorse
Well, probably a few special factors here that a drone and GoPro couldn't handle:
1) Need to handle those extremely cold nights on Mars and turn on again.
2) Drone propellers are probably not made for 1/100 of earth atmosphere
3) Would need considerable weight/geometry re-engineering to fit under/on Percy (and in original spacecraft) to travel in space, land, and then deploy
4) Need a place to put that Wright Brother's artifact that they carried up there. Attaching to the outside with a piece of NASA space tape is too risky don't you think?
I think there is a low bar for the mission to be a success. But high functionality available, gives the potential for a high ceiling to make this incredibly informative for future missions.
Larry
DevilHorse
Looking really good for Sunday night flight with overnight confirmation into Monday:
https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere
Inginuity propellers tested at 50 RPMs.
Percy repositioning for a good view of the festivities.
Larry
DevilHorse
For those wishing to watch a bunch of NASA tech's jump around when they get a signal on their scopes that Ingenuity flew or not, there will be a live broadcast of the festivities on Sunday night/Monday Morning Eastern 3:30ish:
NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover
@NASAPersevere
How to watch this weekend’s historic test of the #MarsHelicopter:
Test flight is scheduled for April 11, with live stream to confirm results on April 12, 12:30 a.m. PT/3:30 a.m. ET/7:30 a.m. UTC.
Tune in: http://go.nasa.gov/WatchIngenuity
Read more: http://go.nasa.gov/3dPs2Kv
https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere
If such things put you to sleep, it could be redundant.
Larry
DevilHorse
OK, I recall seeing a dust devil on Mars a while back, and that was certainly cool. But it surely doesn't beat coolness of a Water Spout coming on land like at Panama City Beach, Florida this morning!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1380893575500734469
They saw this one coming from a mile off shore.
Larry
DevilHorse
I only have one waterspout story, although I have seen a few from my time on the SC coast. I was fishing off the north jetty in Freeport, Texas. There were 10-20 of us 200-300 yards out on the jetty. A squall line appeared to the northeast with 6-7 funnel clouds in it and 2-3 going down to the water. We were too far from shore to head back, so we just stood there. Fortunately, the funnel clouds lifted before the storm blew over us. We got a pretty good blow and very wet -- but survived. My survival plan had the waterspout came at us was to jump into the boat channel between the north and south jetties and hope for the best.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Some glitch popped up during testing, so the flight has been moved to Wednesday.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/othe...O1m?li=BBnb7Kz
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
A new software load is needed for Ingenuity, so the first flight will be pushed off till next week. Fortunately, the hardware appears to be fine.
A few impertinent questions:
Since Percy is an intermediary between earth and Ingenuity, will the 'copter become a drag on what Percy has to do? Percy has a significantly larger range (in time and distance) than Ingenuity, but as long as Ingenuity is going to be tested and doing things, it has to be close to Percy; and it can't follow unless it is operating. I expect that NASA was going to finish with Ingenuity and just leave it behind while Percy went off to explore.
Although it will take a while to send the new software to Percy and then Ingenuity, is that a software Upload to Mars and a Download to the Helicopter? Is there a difference?
If there is almost no atmosphere, can you still use the cloud ;^p ?
When Ingenuity flies, will it be listed as a UFO on the DBR Mars Forum?
Larry
DevilHorse
It's a GO for Ingenuity's flight tomorrow morning, Eastern time.
https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/1383837131110420488
Information should be coming back to NASA at 6:15am. Probably live on youtube and other places.
Better than 2am I think.
Larry
DevilHorse
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
I think it's 25 or 6 to 4...
Chicago and Houston are in the same time zone, to the extent that is relevant.
Lots of data downloaded...
First flight confirmed.
Picture of shadow on the surface on TV (taken from Ingenuity's downward facing camera). Cool.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzVNzeBV...png&name=small
Movie from Percy of Ingenuity going up and coming down. Way Cool.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1384098659562786820
Newsconferance later today at 11am if interested.
Larry
DevilHorse
Correction. News Conference is 11am Pacific Time, 2pm Eastern Time today.
News Sources are reporting that the flight was ~ 3 meters = 10 feet.
Confusing information from NASA is that Ingenuity weighs approximately 4 lbs. I'm sure you've heard that on the reports.
Where? (Here on can actually say, "On what planet!").
Inference to me is that would be on earth.
Mars gravity is 38% of earth. Therefore, according to F=Ma, F is Weight, M doesn't change, Ingenuity now weighs ~1.52 lbs on Mars.
Just giving mass in Kg would have worked fine. Weight is in the eye of the (planet) beholder and is irrelevant in space.
Sorry for mixing English and MKS units, but you get the point. If you're wondering what the unit for mass is in English Units, it is called a Slug (not kidding).
Larry
DevilHorse
Tidbits from the news conference:
4 lbs is the earth measure of weight. 1.8 kgs is the Mass of Ingenuity.
They had a long discussion about why this is NOT an off the shelf drone (as suggested they might try earlier in the thread). Temperature conditions and 1/100 atmosphere was a big consideration. Also the very strict weight constraints. Yes, they said 1.8 Kgms, but they alluded to arguments over an additional couple of grams for increased communications that did not get added. The weight budget was very strict. The idea for a Helicopter was added late in this Mars Rover's development, so it was retrofitted.
There was wind on Mars which accounted for the slight wobble you may have noticed at the top of the flight of Ingenuity. Apparently Ingenuity controls its' position using the same camera that took the picture of its shadow from below (to be mentioned later); so it kept in position even though the wind tried to move it aside. Ingenuity also executed a 96 degree turn (intentionally) so its camera could face Percy.
Ingenuity does not have a "landing" mode per se'. When descending, Ingenuity "flies through the ground". When it does not make any more progress, the propellers shut off. This way, less time is spent with the propellers going. If a slower, softer landing were to be attempted, it might also mis-interpret landing or not. So a hard landing was the best idea.
There were very few surprises as to how actual flight and behavior differed from the many flights that took place during the model runs. The team was very pleased as to how few (if any) aberrations there were. But more telemetry was still coming in.
The full slate of planned test flights includes 3 more. The next might be Thursday morning, depending on more data that it gets (as it comes in today). There is a 2 week window for Ingenuity's planned lifetime, after which Percy will be let loose to continue on its primary mission. Ingenuity has a limited scope, while Percy mills around looking at local rocks and then it will go exploring. HOWEVER, assuming that Ingenuity completes its 4 total planned flights, it will then be free to push the limits of what it can do, which has not yet been decided. This may include going as high, fast, or far as it can to test its limits.
There are expected physical limits to what the vehicle can do, because of how it was built (well, yah!). It can only go so high because its altimeter depends on being able to 'see' the ground with its vertical camera beneath. It was mentioned that if it goes above 10 meters (it went 3 meters today) then it starts to become unreliable. In terms of speed, the traveling speed is expected to be about 2 m/second ~ 4.5 MPH; that's a really brisk walk for us; but faster than Percy. In terms of its maximum distance, 300 meters. Each of these limits can be expected to be exceeded a bit.
One interesting item that was exceeded is that after the first flight, it was mentioned that the power output from the solar cells had increased. It seems that taking a flight pushed some dust off of the solar cells on top. Exercise is good for you!! Perhaps there will be a better budget for doing the flight activities. Also, there was little dust seen under Ingenuity when it landed; I might theorize that it was already blown away by the propellers.
There was much discussion about how this new technology would translate to other things. Helicopters on Venus and Titan were specifically mentioned, although the designs would have to be different. [discussion is mine] I don't know about Venus though, the temperatures are really high and so are the winds (i.e., 100mph), except in a few places (perhaps the equator and the polls. But the atmosphere is opaque; viewing will be limited. Perhaps infra-red and other sensors. Titan is interesting. The Huygens craft (part of the Cassini mission) crash landed onto Titan (moon of Saturn) while it took pictures all the way down. Titan had clouds, but they were high up, plenty of viewable space for a helicopter. The atmosphere at ground level is 1.5 (earth) atmospheres. Gravity on the surface of Titan is 0.13 g of Earth. Plenty of lift available, and with little gravity, lots of bang for the buck! However, being near Saturn with lots of clouds, you need a better plan for charging solar cells.
The conference call was 1.5 hours and I probably forgot more than I included, but this is what stuck.
Larry
DevilHorse
Note the Titan example is actually happening, though it won't get there until 2036. Dragonfly (mission name) is going to be incredible.
Odds are good that NASA will announce a Venus mission this summer (they will pick 1 or 2 missions out of 4 concepts that are finalists: 2 concepts are to Venus, 1 to Jupiter's moon Io, 1 to Neptune's moon Triton), though it won't be a helicopter.
Exciting times!
The question was specifically about the helicopter technology extending to other existing missions, so an atmosphere is a must, and so would be a place to land and perhaps a rover.
Another interesting point mentioned was the number of 'hops' that communications takes. Let me see if I can get this right from memory:
1) From Ingenuity to
2) Rover: Perseverance to
3) Orbiter around Mars (Mars Relay Network Orbiters) [already used by Curiosity and InSight rovers] to
4) Deep Space Network (https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/communications/) which are 3 antennas, 120 degrees apart, on earth, communicating with the satellites around Mars, all the time.
This is part of why it takes 4 hours to communicate.
Ingenuity propellers rotate at 2400 times a minute, which is 6-8 times the rate of a helicopter on earth; but, some drone propeller get up to 8000 rpms.
Then, you mentioned Io. Perhaps the most active Lava based Volcano planet in its solar system. I hope they have a really good map of Io if they want to land there. But the surface must be very uneven. And the magnetic fields there might just be enormous. Moving through the magnetic field of Jupiter could produce some electrical induction problems I would guess. I would go with an orbiter first before even thinking about landing on that medusa.
As suspected, the IVO project is a series of well timed flybyes:
https://www.space.com/io-volcano-obs...-proposal.html
Jupiter is to be feared. It should have been a star, but didn't have quite enough mass, but still has radio frequency and radiation emissions and is nasty. But it cleans our solar system of all those nasty comets and things that might make us extinct, so I'm OK with big brother.
Larry
DevilHorse