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Salon has an article on Ingenuity.
In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew a plane for 12 seconds, 120 feet in the air, on what is now known as the first powered-controlled flight on Earth. Now, 118 years later, the first powered-controlled attempt at a flight on another planet is about to take place.
According to NASA, Ingenuity — the four-pound rotorcraft attached to Perseverance — is on its way to its "airfield" on Mars.
The space agency announced that its target for its first takeoff attempt will happen no earlier than April 8, 2021.
Ingenuity was designed as an experiment to see if it is possible to fly on Mars as we do here on Earth. And the process leading up to the takeoff is a very meticulous one. Consider how long it took humans to stick a powered-controlled flight on Earth; given Mars' thin atmosphere and a twenty-minute delay in communication, it is arguably more challenging on Mars.
"As with everything with the helicopter, this type of deployment has never been done before," Farah Alibay, Mars helicopter integration lead for the Perseverance rover, said in a press statement. "Once we start the deployment there is no turning back."
Every move for the next couple of weeks could make or break Ingenuity's success — starting with precisely positioning the rotorcraft in the middle of its 33-by-33-foot square airfield, which is actually a flat field on the Martian surface with no obstructions. From there, the entire deployment process from Perseverance will take about six Martian days, which are called sols. (The Martian sol is thirty-nine minutes longer than an Earth day.)
Good luck, little chopper!
Previously:
NASA Lays Out Plans for its First Flights on Mars
How NASA Designed a Helicopter that Could Fly Autonomously on Mars
NASA is Sending a Helicopter to Mars, but What For?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29 2021, @12:13PM (5 children)
I understand all of that. I would hope that on this program they would have done some vacuum chamber testing to validate their computer modeling. I'm not saying that this is a trivial thing to do, I'm just saying that it is very over hyped, in my opinion. They know all the important principles to adapt a design. I'd be more impressed if they could do this on a planet like Mercury. Not THAT would be incredible!
I would also take issue with the article suggesting that this is much harder than what the Wright Bros. did by saying that it took mankind thousands of years to finally get airborne and these guys have to do the same thing from scratch in just a few years. I won't bother going into the reasons why this is an asinine comment, but I would point out that the Wright Bros. had to figure the practical principles of aerodynamics out as they were going, AND they also put their own butts in the seat to try them out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29 2021, @01:30PM (3 children)
A little perspective on overnight success... and a reminder how hard it is to really do something.
1709 – Model glider design
Bartolomeu Laurenço de Gusmao designs a model glider.
1783 – Hot air balloon flight
The first untethered manned hot air balloon flight was on 21 November 1783 in Paris, France in a balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers.
1843 – Biplane design
George Cayley’s biplane design is published.
1895 – Biplane gliders
Otto Lilienthal flies biplane gliders.
1903 – First powered flight
Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first recorded powered, sustained and controlled flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday March 29 2021, @02:24PM (1 child)
I'm not sure the hot air balloons fit into the sequence. And you left out all the designs that didn't work at all, going back before Leonardo da Vinci. Daedalus fits in there somewhere.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anti-aristarchus on Monday March 29 2021, @08:45PM
Daedalus' flying machines worked! The teenaged Icarus just didn't read the Fine Manual.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 29 2021, @04:03PM
Arthur Morgan and Sadie Adler successfully used a hot air balloon to break the notorious John Marston out of Sisika Penitentiary.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 30 2021, @05:07AM
You would get your helicopter to fly by using rockets. Remember, Mercury doesn't have a buoyant atmosphere in which a helicopter can fly. Mars barely does, only during the summer at low altitude.