SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
News at CNN:
(CNN) The Ingenuity helicopter survived its first night on the freezing-cold surface of Mars, a major milestone in the rotorcraft's journey ahead of its historic first flight.
Jezero Crater, an ancient lake bed on Mars and the current site of the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter, can drop to temperatures of minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit. That's low enough to do significant damage to the helicopter's electrical and battery components.
The 4-pound helicopter finally separated on April 3 from the belly of the Perseverance rover, where it has been stashed since before the rover launched from Earth in July.
Ingenuity went through a series of movements to unfold from beneath the rover, which looked like the metamorphosis of a butterfly, before dropping the final 4 inches to the Martian surface.
[...] "This is the first time that Ingenuity has been on its own on the surface of Mars," said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement. "But we now have confirmation that we have the right insulation, the right heaters, and enough energy in its battery to survive the cold night, which is a big win for the team. We're excited to continue to prepare Ingenuity for its first flight test."
When Ingenuity does fly, which could happen as soon as April 11, it will be the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. In a nod to the first such feat conducted on Earth, Ingenuity carries a swatch of fabric from the Wright brothers' plane, Flyer 1.
Ingenuity, the first rotorcraft sent to Mars, presented a challenge to the engineers who designed it for several reasons. It needed to be small enough to tuck up under the rover without endangering Perseverance's mission, which is the first to search for evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars.
April 11, or 4-11! Or later.
Previously:>br>
NASA’s Mars Rover Drops Off Ingenuity Helicopter Ahead of Historic Flight
First Flight on Mars? Ingenuity Helicopter Preps for Takeoff
NASA Lays Out Plans for its First Flights on Mars
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @10:58AM (7 children)
What is said here that wasn't already mentioned in the article from 10ish hours ago? The craft has arrived, it was really cold, all things ok. I know there is an editor with a massive hard-on for all things space but this is just silly.
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=21/04/05/019232 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @11:02AM (3 children)
Just wait until the SJW editor starts "their" shift later today and posts an article about LatinX engineer who monitored the battery levels all night.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @11:27AM (2 children)
Or, the RWNJ who thinks that Mars is flat, and the the Covid-19 vaccine is a Vatican plot to put a Bill Gates chip in the air on Mars, and, well, and, and Massive Fraud, more massive than ever before! With no evidence.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday April 06 2021, @11:51AM (1 child)
Or the AC editor who posts an article about the poor quality of news submissions to aggregator sites.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @01:15PM
More concerned what the fahrenheit is in modern science money (SN Editors used to insert conversions:)
For example, a better measure for the current readership might be what that is in GWU (global warming units).
My bestguesstimate is about 20 GWU between daytime and nightly temps on mars.
To which it twere, more important than absolute F temp, unless they did not even harden it for freezing days? In that case it will never fly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @11:48AM
Ever since I had that strange experience with an electronic device I feel as if I can see through the cameras of Mars rovers without any time delay.
Looks like the chopper will take off but the troposphere is too thin.
(Score: 1) by kvutza on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:30PM
If I got it correctly, the new thing is that Ingenuity survived its first night without being connected to Perseverance.
Good luck little pal!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 07 2021, @02:01AM
Is this your first JPL PR rodeo? This is what they do! They probably put way more money into PR than they do their missions!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @01:23PM (3 children)
Not like they didn’t test putting it in a freezer on Earth to test before sending to Mars.
Mars - the ultimate ‘production’ deployment
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @03:03PM (1 child)
an earth-shatteringa mars-shattering kaboom?(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @08:03PM
The rover is 4 pounds. So it it weighs about 1.5 pounds on Mars, will probably not fly especially high, and fall at a rate of 0.38G. It could probably drop out of the sky onto your head (on Mars) and you'd be fine. A metric ton rover designed to be dropped onto the planet and survive numerous extreme conditions, and operate for years, wouldn't even register it as noise.
(Score: 2) by corey on Wednesday April 07 2021, @11:57AM
Yeah, of course. But the helicopter would have been exposed to those temperatures while attached to Perseverance anyway (unless it has a built in sauna). Maybe the residual heat of Perseverance would raise the night time temps a bit above that 130 below, but probably not by much.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 06 2021, @02:14PM
What would have been wrong with 4/20? All the engineers and techs could have lighted up to watch the action!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Socrastotle on Tuesday April 06 2021, @08:00PM (4 children)
Then what exactly is the skycrane that drops and then carefully maneuvers away from the rover? Or similarly for the one that also did it a decade ago. It's not like they'll be actively controlling it. 14 minute latency would cause certain issues there. So it's just a preprogrammed flight of a rover. Like the skycrane, except the skycrane is a hella big monster carefully dropping a metric ton rover onto the surface. While the drone they're trying to hype up is a 4 pound toy. What am I missing?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by martyb on Tuesday April 06 2021, @09:32PM (1 child)
It appears something got omitted from your quote. The full quote from TFS was:
The skycranes were "powered, controlled landings". Those took off from Earth and landed on Mars; two different planets.
Here, the flight would take off AND land entirely on another planet (Mars).
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Socrastotle on Wednesday April 07 2021, @02:28PM
I'm not entirely sure how you get that out of the quote. And the cranes also have to take off after releasing their load in a powered and controlled flight, or they would simply crash right on top of the rover. And similarly there have been numerous drones that have launched, landed, and relaunched on various other celestial bodies in mission resupplies for autonomous missions, or to get astronauts back into orbit for things like the moon landings. I suppose those were not on a planet, but this is feeling increasingly sad. The same organization that put men on the moon 50 years ago is now trying to create hype proclaiming, at best questionable, world firsts over what comes down to launching a toy sized drone...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @11:59PM (1 child)
The skycrane was a rocket. Those have been done many, many times. This is an aircraft, and winged flight has never been done on another planet before.
(Score: 2) by Anti-aristarchus on Wednesday April 07 2021, @07:34AM
There was the ill-fated "Moonplane", but it never really got off the ground.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday April 06 2021, @09:14PM
That's really cool that they're honoring the first powered controlled flight on Earth. I'm sure the brothers had no idea the fabric they chose would ultimately end up on Mars.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.