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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: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 30 2021, @08:10AM (7 children)
What's missing about a "cycle unit" that automatically cancels out? It's never present in the first place!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @11:46AM (1 child)
It doesn't "automatically cancel out".
We choose the units of the constant so that it does. And those units tell us the meaning of the constant.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 30 2021, @03:23PM
It would not be E= hf, otherwise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @01:24PM (4 children)
By dropping cycles from the units of frequency you have changed the meaning of Planck's constant (and probably others as well).
All the math works out the same but now everyone is confused about what the numbers mean so everything seems "spooky" and non-intuitive.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 30 2021, @03:26PM
All the math works out the same but now everyone is confused about what the numbers mean so everything seems "spooky" and non-intuitive.
"All the math works out the same" says it all. This is irrelevant to the model and the math of that model.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 30 2021, @03:36PM (2 children)
No, we haven't!
"All the math works out the same" says it all. This is irrelevant to the model and the math of that model.
I can't believe there's all this noise over a simple two factor equation, much less in a rocket discussion where even the equation is completely irrelevant. Let me guess, this was all about just dropping a link to that paper?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 30 2021, @04:09PM (1 child)
The units of a constant tell you what it represents.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 30 2021, @04:54PM
Again, irrelevant since it doesn't matter if "cycles" is or isn't part of those units.