NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Successfully Flies Faster, Farther on Third Flight (nasa.gov) 29
"NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter continues to set records, flying faster and farther on Sunday, April 25, 2021 than in any tests it went through on Earth," reports NASA:
The helicopter took off at 1:31 a.m. EDT (4:31 a.m. PDT), or 12:33 p.m. local Mars time, rising 16 feet (5 meters) — the same altitude as its second flight. Then it zipped downrange 164 feet (50 meters), almost half the length of a football field, reaching a top speed of 6.6 feet per second (2 meters per second). [Roughly 4.5 miles an hour.]
After data came back from Mars starting at 10:16 a.m. EDT (7:16 a.m. PDT), Ingenuity's team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California was ecstatic to see the helicopter soaring out of view. They're already digging through a trove of information gathered during this third flight that will inform not just additional Ingenuity flights but possible Mars rotorcraft in the future. "Today's flight was what we planned for, and yet it was nothing short of amazing," said Dave Lavery, the project's program executive for Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "With this flight, we are demonstrating critical capabilities that will enable the addition of an aerial dimension to future Mars missions."
NASA's chief pilot for the Mars helicopter calls this flight a big step "in which Ingenuity will begin to experience freedom in the sky," according to CNN.
From the sky Ingenuity snapped a photo of its own shadow on Mars, and earlier sent back the very first aerial color image — taken 17 feet (5.2-metre) above the surface of Mars by Ingenuity's high-resolution color camera with a 4208-by-3120-pixel sensor.
After data came back from Mars starting at 10:16 a.m. EDT (7:16 a.m. PDT), Ingenuity's team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California was ecstatic to see the helicopter soaring out of view. They're already digging through a trove of information gathered during this third flight that will inform not just additional Ingenuity flights but possible Mars rotorcraft in the future. "Today's flight was what we planned for, and yet it was nothing short of amazing," said Dave Lavery, the project's program executive for Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "With this flight, we are demonstrating critical capabilities that will enable the addition of an aerial dimension to future Mars missions."
NASA's chief pilot for the Mars helicopter calls this flight a big step "in which Ingenuity will begin to experience freedom in the sky," according to CNN.
From the sky Ingenuity snapped a photo of its own shadow on Mars, and earlier sent back the very first aerial color image — taken 17 feet (5.2-metre) above the surface of Mars by Ingenuity's high-resolution color camera with a 4208-by-3120-pixel sensor.
Funny (Score:2)
They can include a 4K sensor, yet NASA's Psyche probe .. which is launching in 2027 will carry an obsolete off-the-shelf non-HD sensor KAI-2020 from Kodak (produced back when Kodak was in the sensor business). What's the excuse why Ingenuity, which isn't even for science experiments carrying a better sensor than the one Psyche is using?
Re:Funny (Score:5, Informative)
The excuse is because Ingenuity is classified as a class D scientific payload meaning it's not essential to the success of the overall Mars 2020 scientific mission, so the parts used on it don't have to be rated for the mission critical stuff that the rest of the rover has to be. That includes the CPU, imaging sensors, etc. Basically if Ingenuity had failed already it would have been sad, but the mission and science would go on. If Perseverance had a similar imaging sensor and it failed because it wasn't radiation-hardened enough, that would be game over for some vital aspect of the mission. Having said that, the success and longevity of the components on Ingenuity will inform decisions and classifications for components on future missions.
Re:Funny (Score:5, Funny)
Excuse me, you seem to have posted on the wrong site. Your post is concise and answers not only the question but also correctly answers a possible and likely future question.
You did not insult the OP, use a meme, make fun of creimer, use an apostrophe plural, randomly capitalize words, or copy/paste ASCII art.
Please improve your next post by including at least one of the aforementioned vital Slashdot elements.
Re: Funny (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Funny (Score:5, Informative)
The parent's answer is excellent, but I would also like to add that it's not just about reliability. Megapixels are not the only, or even most important, measure of quality in an image sensor. The KAI-2020 is intended for scientific applications and has specifications for that purpose. The IMX214 on Ingenuity is a phone camera sensor. Let's compare:
KAI-2020 vs IMX214
14.8mm vs 5.9mm diagonal size
7.4um vs 1.12um cells
CCD vs CMOS technology
68db vs unspecified-magic-HDR-processing dynamic range
Take a look at the KAI-2020 datasheet [onsemi.com] vs the best I could find on the IMX214 [mouser.com].
An important part isn't just that the specifications are good, but they're also tightly specified with tolerances (check out page 11). It's a serious scientific imaging sensor, vs. something intended to be small and take great pictures for humans to look at.
Re: Funny (Score:2)
You're saying the world has been buying mobile phones in the completely wrong way?
It's a serious scientific imaging sensor, vs. something intended to be small and take great pictures for humans to look at.
Phew, you had me worried for a bit there. It's okay guys, carry on.
Re: (Score:1)
They can include a 4K sensor, yet NASA's Psyche probe .. which is launching in 2027 will carry an obsolete off-the-shelf non-HD sensor KAI-2020 from Kodak (produced back when Kodak was in the sensor business). What's the excuse why Ingenuity, which isn't even for science experiments carrying a better sensor than the one Psyche is using?
The other answer you got is very good, but I'd like to add one more thing. Every instrument on every mission competes with others for weight, power, heat and data. Of the shelf cameras are one of the least useful instruments from a scientific point of view. However, they are the most popular with the general public. Often cameras are added to missions purely for PR value. Many times I've heard scientists frustrated when they show off an amazing discovery only to be met with, "Sure, but do you have a pi
Re: Funny (Score:2)
Really? You think imaging is useless? The key objective according to the mission planners themselves is multi-spectral imaging. Reference: https://www.hou.usra.edu/meeti... [usra.edu]
Read the âoescience goalsâ .. itâ(TM)s literally 100% dependent on imaging. They literally spend a lot of that paper talking about the importance of high resolution to identify all the mineral types present on it. And the sensor they seemed sure of back then is KAI-2020 .. that paper is written 5 years ago .. and we haven
Test comes to an end after 2 more flights ? (Score:3)
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Sole yes, but since it's a sunk cost, they'll most likely use it for more, and if it fails? Oh well.
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There is some room for extending the mission a bit and maybe even doing more extreme maneuvers to test out the feasibility of this type of craft until it crashes. But at some point soon, the real science mission of Perseverance needs to get under way. Right now that's on hold while Perseverance acts as a data relay and documentary photographer of Ingenuity's trial runs. Personally I want to see an aerial picture of Perseverance, and having a bit of an aerial pan of the area from higher altitude would be
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Also, the previous rovers Spirit and Opportunity had an expected usable lifetime of 90 days (due to dust buildup on solar panels). Anything after those 90 days was basically extra science and exploration.
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With a atmosphere 99% less dense than Earth
What a strange way to express that. Wouldn't it make more sense to say, "With an atmosphere only 1% as dense as Earth's..." - since for almost everyone discussing this in the context that matters, our atmospheric density - as experienced by most people - would be the baseline normal?
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With a atmosphere 99% less dense than Earth
What a strange way to express that. Wouldn't it make more sense to say, "With an atmosphere only 1% as dense as Earth's..." - since for almost everyone discussing this in the context that matters, our atmospheric density - as experienced by most people - would be the baseline normal?
Perhaps, but it’s a direct quote from the nasa link, so I thought I would leave it like nasa intended
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The ingenuity’s sole purpose is to test the ability to fly on Mars. With a atmosphere 99% less dense than Earth’s, the craft had to have much larger rotors that spin much faster than a helicopter on earth. After these test flights I’m sure NASA will send many more flying craft to scout every meter of Mars, since a swarm of drones could do in days what would take a wheeled vehicle years. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/j... [nasa.gov]
So as it's sole purpose - you think they should just abandon it - it has demonstrated that it works? I know that's baiting you. I did hear some NASA people speaking of adding to it's mission. So it only makes sense that a working device that can be a useful tool be used.
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The ingenuity’s sole purpose is to test the ability to fly on Mars. With a atmosphere 99% less dense than Earth’s, the craft had to have much larger rotors that spin much faster than a helicopter on earth.
You don't have to fly to Mars to test a small helicopter in an atmosphere 1% as dense as Earth's
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I agree, just because the test program shows that the technology is validated after 5 flights, and hence the technology demo mission is over, does not necessarily mean that the helicopter will never be flown again. It just means it will have to compete for science priority with the other instruments on Perseverance.
One minor correction:
For example, they might try to clean Perseverance's solar panels or scout ahead.
Yes on scout ahead, no on cleaning the solar panels. While I love the idea of hovering a helicopter over solar panels to clean the dust off of them, not gonna happen on this
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Of course, you're right... Well, at least they could use it to give the rover a wash now and then, keep the rims sparkling and all. :-)
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It would probably be judged as too risky. It might smack something, snag a wire or the like.
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I gotta admit, I was thinking about it this morning. What could NASA do with Ingenuity?
One issue is that Ingenuity is somewhat tethered to Perseverance. It can't communicate directory with Earth or with any of the orbiters around Mars. That means, in theory, it has to stick around Perseverance. I'm not sure how clever it is by itself, unfortunately.
What would be cool is to send it on a round trip mission someplace to take pictures and then return. It would land and recharge when it's batteries got low
Re:Test comes to an end after 2 more flights ? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Some of this is from a post I made previously). So once the five test flights are done, would it be possible for the helicopter to scout ahead for the rover?
I mean, I heard that maybe the rover is expected to travel up to 200m per day, would that be within the range of the helicopter to fly, find a new landing site, then go to a landing site found the previous day? Rinse and repeat. If it could be done (and if the helicopter was programmed to fly to the side so that if there was a crash it wouldn't endanger the rover) does anyone know if NASA would actually try it? By the way, what is the maximum distance the rover can communicate with the helicopter?
Even if it were possible, maybe it would be too much of a headache to try to coordinate this activity with the rover team. Or perhaps it would use up too much communications bandwidth to be sending helicopter survey pictures every day. Still, it would be a real bonus if the helicopter could provide, literally, another perspective on things!
Super duper bonus activities, if there is a particularly interesting area that is kinda dusty, could the helicopter hover over it for a few seconds to blow off the dust? (If you were really daring, perhaps it could fly over the rover to blow off dust from the cameras). If they need a very precise way to estimate distances, could it land somewhere and, since its size is known, use it to calibrate distance measurements? How about using its camera in conjunction with the ones on the rover to help triangulate distant targets? In the future, would these drones be able to be powered remotely by the rover, say by using the high power laser on the mastcam to hit the solar cells on the drone? (I know the orientation of the solar cells is quite bad and the laser wavelength is probably wrong). If the wind picks up, would the rotors be able to generate a little power, or at least give another wind data point? Is the accelerometer on the copter be good enough to detect ground vibrations? (Doubtful because of the spindly legs). Could the helicopter be used to measure the intensity of the laser by seeing the attenuation of the beam through the atmosphere or perhaps perform another measurement of the dust particles in the atmosphere. (I have an air quality sensor at home that uses that system to measure 2.5 micron dust particles). Too bad the helicopter didn't have a color calibration target. If the helicopter's color camera was operative at night, it would be neat to see the rover backlit by Mars' two tiny moons or the rover firing its laser. If the helicopter is near the rover, could it give the engineers some useful diagnostic information by seeing for example, the accumulated dust on the rover or how the drill is operating from a different vantage point?
By the way, I'd love to hear AUDIO of the helicopter flying! Maybe even catch the Doppler effect if it flies by the rover. Might add some useful information about the atmosphere (or about the performance of the rotors).
Anyway, in answer to your question, it doesn't have a GPS chip (because there's no GPS on Mars!). I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a compass or magnetometer because there's no global magnetic field like on earth. The image based maps which it creates on the fly is, I believe, only good to fly short distances so it can find its way back, it certainly doesn't have the extremely high resolution database of the unexplored Martian surface that it would need. Finally as you mention, even if by some miracle it flew somewhere and found something worth reporting back about, it can't communicate without Perseverance acting as a relay. So, it's stuck for flights around Percy.
Still the most likely BEST USE for the helicopter IS PHOTO OPS of the rover from above. Like selfies from Mars! Would be great for encouraging public interest and showing people that we are actually on another planet. Once again, sorry, just drank some coffee
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You ask a bunch of great questions. I can only offer some armchair-grade speculation and a few easy facts.
By the way, what is the maximum distance the rover can communicate with the helicopter?
"Ingenuity and the base station use a UHF telecom link (900 MHz) to communicate with each other. The system can relay data at up to 250 kilobytes per second over distances of up to 3,300 feet (1,000 meters)." -- https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/... [nasa.gov]
If you were really daring, perhaps it could fly over the rover to blow off dust from the cameras
That would risk a catastrophic crash. I don't think they'd do that unless it got desperately bad, and it hasn't been a problem on other rovers.
If they need a very precise way to estimate distances, could it land somewhere and, since its size is known, use it to calibrate distance measurements? How about using its camera in conjunction with the ones on the rover to help triangulate distant targets?
The Mars Recon
Coming soon... (Score:2)
Coming soon to a slashdot near you: "NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flies for the 207th time, making history, breaking the previous record of flying the 206th time."
And Then-- (Score:2)
Having recently crashed a drone... (Score:2)
Crashing drones is very easy. Even when they have good gyros, GPS, low latency controls, etc, a very small mistake will cause a catastrophic crash. This is on Earth. On Mars, things are already trickier, no GPS, no compass (no magnetic poles), and definitely no humans actively monitoring it.
So getting five flights is groundbreaking. In fact, even the first hop was an excellent achievement.
On the other hand, I would expect NASA to allow Ingenuity to "tag along", and follow the rover from a distance, as long