The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Just Sent Its Last Message Home (livescience.com) 27
Two months ago the team behind NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter released a video reflecting on its historic explorations of Mars, flying 10.5 miles (17.0 kilometers) in 72 different flights over three years. It was the team's way of saying goodbye, according to NASA's video.
And this week, LiveScience reports, Ingenuity answered back: On April 16, Ingenuity beamed back its final signal to Earth, which included the remaining data it had stored in its memory bank and information about its final flight. Ingenuity mission scientists gathered in a control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California to celebrate and analyze the helicopter's final message, which was received via NASA's Deep Space Network, made up of ground stations located across the globe.
In addition to the remaining data files, Ingenuity sent the team a goodbye message including the names of all the people who worked on the mission. This special message had been sent to Perseverance the day before and relayed to Ingenuity to send home.
The helicopter, which still has power, will now spend the rest of its days collecting data from its final landing spot in Valinor Hills, named after a location in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" books.
The chopper will wake up daily to test its equipment, collect a temperature reading and take a single photo of its surroundings. It will continue to do this until it loses power or fills up its remaining memory space, which could take 20 years. Such a long-term dataset could not only benefit future designs for Martian vehicles but also "provide a long-term perspective on Martian weather patterns and dust movement," researchers wrote in the statement. However, the data will be kept on board the helicopter and not beamed back to Earth, so it must be retrieved by future Martian vehicles or astronauts.
"Whenever humanity revisits Valinor Hills — either with a rover, a new aircraft, or future astronauts — Ingenuity will be waiting with her last gift of data," Teddy Tzanetos, an Ingenuity scientist at JPL, said in the statement.
Thursday NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory released another new video tracing the entire route of Ingenuity's expedition over the surface of Mars.
"Ingenuity's success could pave the way for more extensive aerial exploration of Mars down the road," adds Spacae.com: Mission team members are already working on designs for larger, more capable rotorcraft that could collect a variety of science data on the Red Planet, for example. And Mars isn't the only drone target: In 2028, NASA plans to launch Dragonfly, a $3.3 billion mission to Saturn's huge moon Titan, which hosts lakes, seas and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons on its frigid surface. The 1,000-pound (450 kg) Dragonfly will hop from spot to spot on Titan, characterizing the moon's various environments and assessing its habitability.
And this week, LiveScience reports, Ingenuity answered back: On April 16, Ingenuity beamed back its final signal to Earth, which included the remaining data it had stored in its memory bank and information about its final flight. Ingenuity mission scientists gathered in a control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California to celebrate and analyze the helicopter's final message, which was received via NASA's Deep Space Network, made up of ground stations located across the globe.
In addition to the remaining data files, Ingenuity sent the team a goodbye message including the names of all the people who worked on the mission. This special message had been sent to Perseverance the day before and relayed to Ingenuity to send home.
The helicopter, which still has power, will now spend the rest of its days collecting data from its final landing spot in Valinor Hills, named after a location in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" books.
The chopper will wake up daily to test its equipment, collect a temperature reading and take a single photo of its surroundings. It will continue to do this until it loses power or fills up its remaining memory space, which could take 20 years. Such a long-term dataset could not only benefit future designs for Martian vehicles but also "provide a long-term perspective on Martian weather patterns and dust movement," researchers wrote in the statement. However, the data will be kept on board the helicopter and not beamed back to Earth, so it must be retrieved by future Martian vehicles or astronauts.
"Whenever humanity revisits Valinor Hills — either with a rover, a new aircraft, or future astronauts — Ingenuity will be waiting with her last gift of data," Teddy Tzanetos, an Ingenuity scientist at JPL, said in the statement.
Thursday NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory released another new video tracing the entire route of Ingenuity's expedition over the surface of Mars.
"Ingenuity's success could pave the way for more extensive aerial exploration of Mars down the road," adds Spacae.com: Mission team members are already working on designs for larger, more capable rotorcraft that could collect a variety of science data on the Red Planet, for example. And Mars isn't the only drone target: In 2028, NASA plans to launch Dragonfly, a $3.3 billion mission to Saturn's huge moon Titan, which hosts lakes, seas and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons on its frigid surface. The 1,000-pound (450 kg) Dragonfly will hop from spot to spot on Titan, characterizing the moon's various environments and assessing its habitability.
What ? You were expecting... (Score:3, Funny)
Airwolf or Blue Thunder ? What is wrong with you people ?
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"
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Ernest Borgnine always said: "Ovaltine and 151 - yum, yum!"
Starship (Score:3)
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The Japanese have demonstrated precision landing on the Moon without GPS. They used various sensors, including cameras scanning the horizon to match it to the expected view.
The race for sample return is now on with China. They are likely to do a simple mission that aims to just get something back, rather than maximize scientific value, much like Apollo 11. Starship might be in that race, it's not really clear yet. They are contracted to put astronauts on the Moon next year, although it looks like it will sl
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Maybe, but if you want to carry a small return vehicle then you need a way to deploy it. With a Starship landed on its tail, they will need to robotically deploy a rover to collect samples, and carry a rocket large enough to return those samples to orbit, where presumably a second Starship would be waiting. And maybe a third tanker one, to carry the fuel needed to get home.
There is a lot of tech that needs to be developed. Meanwhile China is likely to focus on just getting anything back, to claim the first
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With manned, it is easy enough for ppl and supplies to be transferred from space-only to the lander. The question becomes, what about the cargo version?
So far, SX has shown a door on the side, but I believe that there is NO WAY that is going to work. The reason is that the cargo will be pulled out and then have to be stacked directly below the door. In addition, assuming that lunar and martian car
Looking forward to Titan (Score:5, Interesting)
With a surface pressure of 1.45 atm, Titan is a lot more promising for helicopters than Mars (0.00628 atm). It will be amazing to see Dragonfly there. Patience needed, though, as the planned arrival is in 2034.
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I thought you had it (Score:5, Funny)
"Whenever humanity revisits Valinor Hills, Ingenuity will be waiting with her last gift of data. "
'You got a cable that fits that?'
'No. I haven't seen that connector in a long time...'
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By then an AI bot will figure the connection out in no-time, after munching on a few astronauts for fuel.
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NASA has already thought of that: they're going to send elves to Mars instead.
why does it need to store the data? (Score:3)
Why can't it just send it back to the base station there and have it forwarded back to earth? Isn't that how it's been working all along? (or is it too far away from the base station?)
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Why can't it just send it back to the base station there and have it forwarded back to earth? Isn't that how it's been working all along? (or is it too far away from the base station?)
It's mentioned in the summary...
However, the data will be kept on board the helicopter and not beamed back to Earth, so it must be retrieved by future Martian vehicles or astronauts.
The little bastard is trying to blackmail us into bringing it home.
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"the data will be kept" isn't an explanation of WHY. Why will it be kept? Was it capable of sending it but did they do this on purpose to create a treasure trove for later?
why does it need to store the data? leverage (Score:3)
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Perseverance is now too far away to relay the data. Ingenuity does not have the capability of talking directly to the satellite or to earth.
Re:why does it need to store the data? (Score:4, Informative)
The Perseverance rover is the base station for Ingenuity. They talk to each other over Zigbee, and so they have to be reasonably close. There have occasionally been times when it was feared Ingenuity was lost, but we got it back when Perseverance got out from behind a rock or something, and had a clearer line-of-sight.
But Perseverance can't sit around communicating with Ingenuity forever: it has its own mission to continue and will travel tens of kilometers away from Ingenuity's final resting stop.
Runs Ubuntu (Score:5, Interesting)
What an amazing little machine. Having flown my share of RC aircraft, I'm amazed that it flew for so long before it finally crashed. This is the kind of NASA engineering that we have found so awesome over the years.
I listened to a fascinating interview with one of the project leads and he revealed that Ingenuity runs Ubuntu and they actually had the ability to get a actual remote shell through Perseverance. They used this shell on a couple of occasions to modify the script that used ffmpeg to create video files from the still images, among other tasks. Pretty interesting stuff.
Has to be the coolest use of Linux to date. And the fact that open source software such as ffmpeg is running on a computer on another planet.
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I don't think the problem was that it "finally crashed". It had a few rough landings (IINM), and more likely the accumulative shocks eventually damaged the propeller too much to fly.
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No it really did crash. Rotors impacted the sand. One blade is several meters away and there are marks on the sand where the impact occurred.
It said... (Score:1)
Obligatory (Score:2)