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.
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.
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).
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The helicopter was designed as a short engineering proof of concept. The only scientific instrument onboard is a high resolution camera. Having stated the obvious, I too wonder what else can be accomplished once the flights are complete. There would be significant scientific value in high resolution stratigraphy of Jezereo crater.
In earlier versions of X-Plane flight simulator you could design aircraft to fly on Mars. Lots of fun. Anything from helicopters like Ingenuity to fixed wing rocket planes.
The physics/math behind it is accurate enough that NASA has used it in the design of terrestrial aircraft.
If it has a preplanned last flight, sending it one way along the path the rover plans taking maximises value from terrain mapping and imaging input to route optimisation.
I say if, since the protocol may be to simply stop before it is predicted to drain. The last flight may only be known in arrears.
It has solar panels and a battery. The only reason it should ever stop is if it is damaged. (Or falls over? I wonder if the rover could pick it up again.)
It depends on the battery to survive overnight cold. If it gets unable to stay warm, it might not come back from an overnighter. The battery will have been chosen for flight. It may have sacrificed aH duration for peak intensity and weight
Maybe you're thinking about the small sample of Wright Flyer fabric? [1] The helicopter doesn't have a parachute. The rover's parachute did have a coded message.[2]
I hope we start sending larger and larger aircraft on Mars. From the current toy copter to Cessna sized planes and eventually fighter jets and C-130 Hercules-like cargo aircraft we will need to efficiently network distant Martian outposts with one another, we will need paved runways, air traffic control, radars, hardened communications suites, and living quarters to lay the foundation for a truly permanent human colony on Mars. The goal should be to grow a colony to thousands of people, living and working on Mars for years at a time, or for the rest of their lives even, if they wish so.
It’s shame that the Martian atmosphere is so thin, a drone airship would’ve been an interesting idea since it could operate nearly indefinitely.
Achieving buoyancy would require a gigantic lifting body, far larger than any folding body we can send up there.
An evacuated space airship might also be possible but it would require a large ridged body (tho smaller than any gas filled balloon) which would also be impractical if not impossible to currently land on Mars.
> Achieving buoyancy would require a gigantic lifting body
That's why the first manned mission should include a politician, so they could fill the thing with election promises...
Seriously though, it got me thinking about Mytbuster's lead balloon experiment. Though I guess part of the problem is having to survive the dust storms, and possibly small meteorites?
But I don’t know if even starship would be large enough to send something like that to Mars.
But when we have people there that would seem to be the most plausible means of transport. Fixed wing would be likely out of the question, rotary wing aircraft would be very weight limited so carrying cargo and people would probably not work.
So this leaves rockets and airships.
I think one of the interesting things about Mars is that if we colonize it moving on the surface of the planet would be quite a challenge.
No oceans, lands is hard to traverse over long distances due to extreme terrain features and winged flight would be impractical for anything of any substantial mass.
Wouldn't the solution be using the underground lava tubes? It would help with avoiding the radiation....also the techniques uses by the "Boring company" could come in useful....on that note seems like a good project to develop, an autonomous drone that would map out the caves...I mean isn't there supposed to be water in them?
"Mars habitats must contend with surface conditions that include almost no oxygen in the air, extreme cold, low pressure, and high radiation. Alternatively, the habitat may be placed underground"
"Large amounts of underground ice have been found on Mars; the volume of water detected is equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior"
Lava tubes and underground tunnels would be a much longer solution if it’s even feasible I don’t think we understand enough about the geology of Mars to plan for that.
In the “short term” once we do have continuous presence on Mars we might want to spread to a few points of interest.
Martian hyperloop is for when you have millions of people on the planet and we might never get to that point. We need something for dozens or a few 100’s too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNx9hcrUpww
Taking a step back - it is just mind blowing that I am looking at color footage of activity on a different planet.