NASA Begins First Attempt of 'Ingenuity' Helicopter's Flight on Mars (nasa.gov) 82
Slashdot reader quonset reminds us that NASA's Mars helicopter "is officially 'go' for flight!," according to the Twitter feed of the Perserverance Rover, which notes that its cameras are ready to film the historic event.
"Watch with the team as they receive data and find out if they were successful," adds NASA's official feed. "Meet us in mission control April 19 at 6:15am ET (10:15am UTC): Data from the first flight will return to Earth a few hours following the autonomous flight. A livestream will begin at 6:15 a.m. EDT (3:15 a.m. PDT), as the helicopter team prepares to receive the data downlink in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Watch on NASA Television, the agency app, website, and social media platforms, including YouTube and Facebook.
If the flight takes place April 19, a postflight briefing will be held at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT)...
The public and media also may ask questions on social media during the livestream and briefing using #MarsHelicopter. Find the latest schedule updates here.
The Perseverance rover will provide support during flight operations, taking images, collecting environmental data, and hosting the base station that enables the helicopter to communicate with mission controllers on Earth.
Update: And it's a success! "We've been talking for so long about our Wright Brothers moment on Mars, and here it is," said NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter project manager MiMi Aung. The Perserverance rover has already tweeted out a choppy video.
"Watch with the team as they receive data and find out if they were successful," adds NASA's official feed. "Meet us in mission control April 19 at 6:15am ET (10:15am UTC): Data from the first flight will return to Earth a few hours following the autonomous flight. A livestream will begin at 6:15 a.m. EDT (3:15 a.m. PDT), as the helicopter team prepares to receive the data downlink in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Watch on NASA Television, the agency app, website, and social media platforms, including YouTube and Facebook.
If the flight takes place April 19, a postflight briefing will be held at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT)...
The public and media also may ask questions on social media during the livestream and briefing using #MarsHelicopter. Find the latest schedule updates here.
The Perseverance rover will provide support during flight operations, taking images, collecting environmental data, and hosting the base station that enables the helicopter to communicate with mission controllers on Earth.
Update: And it's a success! "We've been talking for so long about our Wright Brothers moment on Mars, and here it is," said NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter project manager MiMi Aung. The Perserverance rover has already tweeted out a choppy video.
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It's the nature of fanatics to impose their agenda upon absolutely everything they encounter. Some of it, I expect, is the kind of cognitive hole they've dug for themselves. Being against something is how they define themselves. There's no vision, no alternative arguments, just one long wailing scream. Conservatives in the West have abandoned any notion of positivity, of looking forward. I can't always agree with everything progressives put forward, but at least they put something forward. And yes, some of
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> Why anyone would gripe about a more inclusive and less adversarial and negative workplace is beyond me.
Why anyone would think such a pathetic straw man would pass muster as an argument is beyond me.
Tokens are given the jobs of people who are more competent than them and whose only crime is to be the wrong race/gender/whatever.
Discrimination is disgusting racism/sexism/whateverism and that is no way to create a "less adversarial or negative workplace".
Got it ?
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Tokens are given the jobs of people who are more competent than them and whose only crime is to be the wrong race/gender/whatever.
Discrimination is disgusting racism/sexism/whateverism and that is no way to create a "less adversarial or negative workplace".
Got it ?
Just to be clear here, and to make sure that the attack on "tokens" isn't just some sort of straw-man attack on NASA, can you please provide the specific examples of "tokens" at NASA relevant to this article? If possible, please provide information about their qualifications and which more qualified applicants they displaced and the qualifications of those applicants.
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Does the percentage of female engineering students in the US match the percentage of female engineers in, for example, NASA programs such as this one ?
NO, not by a very wide margin. Because NASA select TOKEN female engineers.
NASA DISCRIMINATE and select TOKENS because of their GENITALIA.
Next moronic question ?
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> Right wingers suck at engineering
Wasn't NASAs entire early success due to Nazi rocket scientists?
Never mind. I keep forgetting National Socialism is a branch of left-wing politics. I digress, you may be correct.
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.
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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.
Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was just wondering, does anyone know how it steers? It has two counterrotating blades (I have no idea how they manage to make them counterrotate on a single rod nor do I know how they manage to keep it so that some small imbalance doesn't cause the overall vehicle to spin) but I don't see another control surfaces. I think it's too light to have a heavy gyroscope. Does it have some sort of gimbal at the base of the rotors to allow them to tilt? Is there some sort of internal mass (the batteries?) that they can shift around to make the whole vehicle tilt?
Again, I don't know how they even control the pitch of the blades (but I presume pitch control is what allows them to control lift?) so any answers would be most illuminating. If there's a link to a detailed technical description that would be great.
If Ingenuity survives it's five test flights, is there any possibility in having it "tag along" with Perseverance when the rover gets going? Might be useful as a scout. Would the batteries allow for repeated extended flights?
Re:Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:5, Informative)
It's quite simple, it's two concentric shafts, one inside the other. As for steering, I haven't looked at the Mars copter, but helicopters have a device called a swashplate that lets you change the pitch of the blades selectively as the blades spin around 360 degrees. This gets you selective thrust in any direction.
An extreme example of a swashplate would be in 3D helicopter flying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
This is where the swashplate has extreme throws compared to a full-size one...
The Kamov Ka-50 is a full size coax helicopter.
Re: Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:5, Informative)
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I hope they disabled the GPS module.
Re: Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:2)
Yeah it may fly back to Earth and land on someones head. That may make NASA look bad.
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Yeah it may fly back to Earth and land on someones head. That may make NASA look bad.
If NASA could manage that it would make them look great. Elon Musk, eat your heart out.
Re:Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:5, Informative)
The explanation is correct, but the linked video is of no use, to understand the working of the swashplate. This one is better: https://youtu.be/Kd1yLZen33I [youtu.be]
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thanks, I never understood all the stuff I saw on helicopters at the rotors before
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The blades look fixed angle in photos. I think they may be using a rigid rotor system that tilts. That would be mechanically simpler and is quite common with model helicopters.
Getting the weight down and lift up are big considerations because the atmosphere is very thin on Mars, and the reduced gravity doesn't fully compensate.
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Good lord, man. Photos are a frozen picture of a moment in time, what else would you expect to see besides a fixed angle?
A tilt rotor system is neither simple nor common. I don't know how many model helicopters you've seen, but I've seen hundreds on my bench over 20 years. Not a single one tilted the entire rotor assembly.
You have all the explanations in the above comments.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
One wonders why you felt the need to comment.
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I don't know if you are joking, trolling, or just misinformed or what.
Here is the standard toy setup of a coaxial helicopter
https://sep.yimg.com/ay/yhst-9... [yimg.com]
There is no swashplate. The tail rotor is turned 90 degrees and it blows UP or DOWN to tilt the entire helicopter, causing the FIXED main rotor to blow slightly forward or backward. In normal hovering, this type of tail rotor DOES NOT ROTATE, AT ALL.
These are made this way because they are cheap and good enough. You are not flying sideways with this arr
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I have a tiny 4 axis helicopter with a fixed pitch rotor, Hiller stabilizer bar and swashplate. The model is Jiuchon 9C0002, weights about 35 grams, and I think it falls full square into the "toy helicopter" category, though it takes slightly more skill to hover it in place. The two blades tilt as a single unit around their pitch axis, hence the "fixed pitch" definition. The hiller bar is mechanically mixed with the inputs coming from the swashplate. But I also had a coax "3.5 axis" toy helicopter where the
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The blades may superficially resemble those of fixed-pitch toy helis, but they in fact have full cyclic and collective control.
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wow, thanks for sharing that video, I will never underestimate the ability of RC pilots again!
Re:Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:4, Informative)
When you have a close look at the base of the shaft you can seen what probably are the links to the swash plates that adjust the angle of attack/pitch of the blades.
By changing the power difference (speed) between the two rotor you can make the craft rotate (or prevent it from rotating) what on a normal chopper is done by means of the tail rotor.
Re:Does anyone know how it steers? (Score:5, Informative)
Nearly everything answered in this great video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Thanks, it's scary to think that these ultralight blades are having their pitch adjusted 40times a second(!) in order to provide directional thrust
A good day for Humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
In nearly a century, we went from first powered flight on Earth to first powered flight on another Planet. Permit yourselves a moment of joy please, among the torrent of the adversity we call Life.
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Time for you to go back to cognitive therapy.
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I had nothing to do with this flight, nor am I personally invested in anyone who did. While I am certainly pleased that succeeded, "joy" is too strong of an emotion for the functions of a government agency playing with toys only peripherally related to the proper role of government.
I'm not sure I properly understand the emotions of the nasa team responsible for this flight. Putting myself in their shoes, I could imagine both elation at the accomplishment as well as revulsion at having ti do it from inside the sicial media and traditional media fishbowl that is the mars program.
Oh stop being such a stick in the mud. This is just plain cool.
Re: A good day for Humanity (Score:2)
"The proper role of government" is whatever we say it is because we live in a society based on the principles of democracy. We elected the representatives who sign off on doing these kinds of things.
Why do you not know this?
Most of us learn this by junior high school in the USA.
Re: A good day for Humanity (Score:2)
The proper role of the Federal Government in the United States is spelled out by the Constitution: common defense and general welfare through the regulation of national commerce, protection of individual rights, property rights, intellectual property rights, and ensuring national standards for weights and measures, a post office, etc.
Sending purely scientific probes to other planets is only tenuously related to any of those objectives, no matter how gee wiz cool the results may be.
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The proper role of the Federal Government in the United States is spelled out by the Constitution: common defense and general welfare through the regulation of national commerce, protection of individual rights, property rights, intellectual property rights, and ensuring national standards for weights and measures, a post office, etc.
Sending purely scientific probes to other planets is only tenuously related to any of those objectives, no matter how gee wiz cool the results may be.
Yep, and the Constitution's General Welfare clause is rather vague, isn't it?
What the Constitution does NOT say is that spending should be limited to the list you made. The controversy of what that clause allows has been ground out over the decade/centuries since Hamilton's 1791 Report on Manufactures, which his opinion was that Congress should spend money on whatever we want to makes things better (yes, I've over-simplified). But this has has been ground out in the courts and Congress over the many years o
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The constitution is pretty clear about powers that are denied to the federal government and the states. Running a space agency is nowhere in those denied powers. Meanwhile, the constitution is very clear on "To establish Post Offices and post Roads;" in section 8 on the powers of Congress. I wonder what you think about the Post Office? You have to be in favor of keeping it running, right? Proper role of government spelled out in the constitution and all that, right?
Also, please note:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Do you see the "and the
Re:A good day for Humanity (Score:4, Insightful)
118 years is "nearly a century"?
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118 years is "nearly a century"? ... or are you bad in counting or math?
Yes it is
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118 years is "nearly a century"?
Er, yes? Rounding down?
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In nearly a century, we went from first powered flight on Earth to first powered flight on another Planet.
169 years is "nearly a century"?
In 1852, Henri Giffard became the first person to make an engine-powered flight when he flew 27 km (17 mi) in a steam-powered airship.
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No, of course not. That's nearly two (2) centuries!
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"Powered flight" is generally understood to mean some sort of power plant on board provides the power needed to provide lift. Airships get their lift via other means, even if it has powered propulsion.
I don't think the pedantic interpretation is very often used, so without qualifications, probably means the former.
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"Powered flight" is generally understood ... power needed to provide lift.
Is it? By "generally", you mean by you? I think the term you are looking for is "heavier than air", or the aircraft vs aeroplane (airplane) distiction. The difference between an airship and a hot-air-balloon is that the former is powered. Do they not fly?
Or the difference between a glider and a powered aeroplane.
Wikipedia certainly qualifies it:
The Wright brothers ... generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful motor-operated airplane. They made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright Flyer
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My old signature here:
"It was the dawn of the nerd age of mankind".
Let us find ways to celebrate.
Meanwhile... (Score:5, Funny)
there is a huge surge in the number of Martians reporting UFO sightings.
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..from another planet.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if K'Breel has had anyone's gelsacs punctured yet....
Oh no! Six more weeks of Martian winter! (Score:4, Funny)
It saw its shadow!
Six more weeks of winter on Mars!
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Our future here, on Earth, is to eventually go the way of the Neanderthal and Denisovians. The only way we avoid that is to leave the planet and spread throughout the rest of the universe.
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Once we reach the Singularity it's likely there will be a new speciation event, Homo Sapiens to Homo Technocrisi (Tech Using Man).
Re: Billion dollar AirHog on Mars, no thanks (Score:2)
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Billions wasted to fly a toy on a barren planet where we will learn nothing of consequence to help our future here.
So you think flying drones capable of extreme high altitude flight could never be useful here on Earth in any way? With your amazing prophetic abilities, maybe you can enlighten us as to exactly what set of technologies we should pursue?
Very Exciting - Congratulations to the team! (Score:3)
Wow. Very impressive that they got this right the first time.
Can I say that I was surprised at the low-quality data/images/video at the time of the flight? I wouldn't have thought that the bandwidth needs would be that significant and I expected that the flight would take place when there was a direct datalink between Ingenuity/Perseverance to a relay in Mars' orbit (the MRO?) with a dedicated TDRS link to provide good real time video and telemetry.
Maybe it was "just in case" things went badly, the real time video wasn't set up - that way NASA would have some time to explain what happened.
Regardless, congratulations to the team! Let's see what they can do next.
Very Exciting - Congratulations to the software! (Score:2)
Can it be said, "right the first time" if the software had to be rewritten?
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Can it be said, "right the first time" if the software had to be rewritten?
I would say that revising the software BEFORE the first flight is the proper way to do things.
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I'd agree if it was actually done before flight - to Mars.
Re:Very Exciting - Congratulations to the software (Score:4, Informative)
I've been involved in (more than) a few hardware projects where we had to delay first boot attempts because of bugs detected in the firmware/software load through simulation/hardware analogue testing and when we did try on the actual hardware and it ran as expected, we called it being right the first time. With many of these products, not getting it right could result in fire or bricking the hardware.
So, yeah, I'd call this being right the first time without reservation.
Re:Very Exciting - Congratulations to the team! (Score:5, Interesting)
Direct datalink is possible for only about 8 minutes/day, so there may be a scheduling conflict.
The video setup is quite Rube Goldberg due to reusing Curiosity software - images get sent in parts, for instance. So SOP is to send thumbnails first, and HR versions of the interesting images only later.
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The video setup is quite Rube Goldberg due to reusing Curiosity software - images get sent in parts, for instance.
The software isn't the limitation in that case. The Rube Goldberg software is required to get around the RAM limitation of the system. A technical paper worthy of Slashdot readership with all of the details can be found here [springer.com], and wonder of wonders, it's not paywalled. In short, they're using cameras with a resolution higher than the main system can handle in RAM all at once, so the data is retrieved from the camera buffer in tiles which are dumped into the on-board 480 GB of flash storage, which then get
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Can I say that I was surprised at the low-quality data/images/video at the time of the flight? I wouldn't have thought that the bandwidth needs would be that significant and I expected that the flight would take place when there was a direct datalink between Ingenuity/Perseverance to a relay in Mars' orbit (the MRO?) with a dedicated TDRS link to provide good real time video and telemetry.
Higher resolution video of full flight from NASA TV YouTube Channel [youtube.com].
Even with all the work that has gone into video compression in the last thirty years, high resolution high framerate video is still very bandwidth intensive, and Mars rovers don't benefit from most of the research because they prefer frame compression rather than stream compression to avoid forward-propagating errors. Mars rovers use LOCO-I, JPG, and ICER [wikipedia.org], an integer-only wavelet compression scheme, for image compression.
It takes a good de
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It takes a good deal of time to transmit all those compressed frames from Mars. Getting a signal across 287,471,435 km (distance between Earth and Mars today) using nothing but portable solar power and a low wattage RTG is a modern miracle that we take for granted, but it takes giant dishes and signal processing at this end that is just this side of miraculous to pull off. It would be a lot easier if there was a decent Martian ground station with a top end Kilopower reactor running it and a dish big enough that it would be awkward to transport on a rover. Maybe someday, when SpaceX Starships are a little less explodey.
It seems like rather than ground stations, a satellite network a bit like Starlink might be more appropriate. Then those satellites could work with a few satellites with larger more powerful transmitters in a polar orbit where they're always in sunlight to communicate with Earth. Maybe a few relays could even be put into other solar orbits so that there's always a route around the sun and communications can be continuous.
Wright brothers moment (Score:2)
While itâ(TM)s a great thing, this is very far from a Wright brothers moment.
Re: Wright brothers moment (Score:2)
Enthusiasm (Score:2)
The joy of that mission chief was cute to watch. I can't wait for more flights !
Challenges for Helicopter (Score:2)
Challenges in Mars
1. Atmosphere density lighter than on Earth
2. helicopter = aircraft + spacecraft
3. Signal from Earth takes 14 minutes to reach Mars
https://archive.ph/0kA7R [archive.ph]