With Successful 10th Flight, Ingenuity Has Now Flown More Than a Mile on Mars:
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter successfully completed its 10th flight on Mars on Saturday, bringing its total distance flown on the Red Planet to more than one mile (roughly 1.60 kilometers) and capturing important images to help out its friend, the Perseverance rover.
In a Twitter post early Sunday, NASA confirmed that its helicopter had flown over an area called “Raised Ridges,” which is part of a fracture system that the Perseverance team finds intriguing and is considering visiting sometime in the future. Fracture systems often operate as pathways for fluid to get underground. If water did indeed flow through Raised Ridges, it would be an ideal spot to look for evidence of past Martian life, which is the rover’s primary goal, and maybe even drill a sample for further examination.
And, just a reminder:
The status update also takes the time to remind us how Ingenuity has gone above and beyond its initial goals and carried out impressive maneuvers. It has survived on Mars for 107 sols, or Martian days, which is 76 more than its original mission.
In addition, the helicopter has also managed to perform two flight software updates designed to improve its flight and color image capture abilities. Ingenuity has flown for a total of more than 14 minutes on Mars, or more than 112% above its performance in tech demos. It has also given us new views of the Red Planet, taking 43 13-megapixel color images and 809 black and white navigation images.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @12:10PM (4 children)
This is great, but I can't help but think that NASA's goals smack of burecratic ass covering. Certainly even getting to Mars is incredibly difficult but how many times have they now had a tiny "mission" some pencil pusher can claim success on when in reality the initial definition of success is about 1% of what the system can really do.
I wish they'd just let engineers be engineers and say we don't know what we can do but we're going to find out!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @12:30PM
Is better than the commercial model of over/under. first drone i bought was a toy. by the time it was trimmed for stable flight (a good 5min if charged well), the battery innevitably was flat and entire process had to start over some 6 hours later. Got it going only once for an actual picture in flight (involved a complex 2+3 finger grip/juggle and a thumb to achieve). for sure more practice and a bit more capital would have made it more successful, but nothing like the easy fun the box/instructions promised.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 26 2021, @03:18PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @05:04PM
NASA is subject to Congressional micromanagement. Bureaucratic ass covering is a critical survival skill for any science project that doesn't want to be cut in favour of SLS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 27 2021, @12:40AM
It's better than that, this thing had no success requirements! It was a demo. If it didn't work, oh well, it was just a demo and it showed how hard it is to do. If it works, then, well, we're in that situation now. The JPL PR team would spin silk out of sow's ears no matter what happened, even if it crashed and burned on the first flight. That's what they do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @12:57PM (1 child)
After the first successful flight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 26 2021, @05:14PM
Dude it's a helicopter. On Mars! Think of the possibilities.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Monday July 26 2021, @03:15PM (4 children)
The success of the Ingenuity helicopter makes it clear that having such a tool will allow gathering photos from higher angles than the surface of the planet. Better horizon shots. Better shots of ground from above.
Given the success of Ingenuity, Congress might come up with an ingenious plan, one that only Congress could conceive of, to mandate NASA to also build a helicopter for the moon.
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 26 2021, @03:20PM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 26 2021, @03:57PM (2 children)
Here on SN before I have actually suggested using not a hot air balloon, but a balloon filled with lighter than air gas on the moon.
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 26 2021, @05:56PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @01:54AM
I've thought about it as well when I was a kid. The first problem you run in to is that good tensile strength materials are both lighter and cheaper than compressive strength, so even though the volume efficiency is theoretically better for vacuum you get burned on structural requirements. Unless you are trying to float in hydrogen then a gas filled vessel will always give better performance, even for rigid bodies such as Zeppelins
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 27 2021, @04:30AM
the power of NASA's crack team of brown vaginas
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 27 2021, @05:14AM
How many Martian zorgball fields is that?