I really thought it would flop, to be honest. Kudos to NASA! Such has never been tried before; and often during first tries, the unexpected sneaks up on you in space. It's hard to test both the gravity and thin atmosphere of Mars at the same time on Earth. One can make a lighter version of the drone to simulate less gravity, but the weight distribution cannot be fully tested that way because the rotors have to stay the same weight.
For an example of space surprises, look at all the problems that digging and soil sampling equipment have had with the odd Martian dirt. And how the life detection experiments get snagged up in the odd chemistry there. And when Pioneer 10 flew past Jupiter for the first time, radiation screwed with the instruments, denying us our first close-up of the moon Io. And the Apollo 11 lander almost ran out of fuel because the moon was less round than expected, added to computer input overflow issues that didn't show up in Earth practice.
It flew! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It flew! (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, yes it has [cnn.com].
Re:It flew! (Score:5, Funny)
Should have started with the theme music to Airwolf.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:-1, Troll)
Re:It flew! (Score:5, Interesting)
I really thought it would flop, to be honest. Kudos to NASA! Such has never been tried before; and often during first tries, the unexpected sneaks up on you in space. It's hard to test both the gravity and thin atmosphere of Mars at the same time on Earth. One can make a lighter version of the drone to simulate less gravity, but the weight distribution cannot be fully tested that way because the rotors have to stay the same weight.
For an example of space surprises, look at all the problems that digging and soil sampling equipment have had with the odd Martian dirt. And how the life detection experiments get snagged up in the odd chemistry there. And when Pioneer 10 flew past Jupiter for the first time, radiation screwed with the instruments, denying us our first close-up of the moon Io. And the Apollo 11 lander almost ran out of fuel because the moon was less round than expected, added to computer input overflow issues that didn't show up in Earth practice.