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NASA’s helicopter on Mars just keeps flying and flying:
On Monday, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter made its ninth and most ambitious flight yet.
This time, the space agency said, the tiny flier took to the skies for 166.4 seconds and reached a maximum speed of 5 m/s. This is equivalent to 10 mph, or a brisk run. During this flight, Ingenuity covered about 625 meters.
A little more than two months have passed since Ingenuity's first flight, on April 19 of this year. During that initial test, the helicopter hovered to about 3 meters above the ground before landing again. Since then, the engineering team behind the helicopter has pushed the vehicle higher, farther, and faster across the surface of Mars.
In flying farther and farther, Ingenuity is showing off some of the benefits of using powered flight to explore other worlds. The distance Ingenuity traveled during this single flight, NASA engineer Keri Bean noted, is about the same distance that the NASA's Spirit rover traveled during the entirety of its prime mission on the red planet.
And, making itself useful!
For Monday's flight, NASA flew from the Perseverance rover and took a shortcut to reconnoiter the Séítah region, which interests scientists but is likely impassable to the rover due to its sandy ripples.
Wikipedia's list of Ingenuity's flights and map of Perseverance and Ingenuity paths.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday July 07 2021, @06:42AM (3 children)
Glad they made that clear: I was worried it would get stuck up there.
They really should fly higher: it's leaving scratch marks all over the bodywork.
Well, all the worlds we've ever visited kind of involved powered flights at some point, haven't they?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 07 2021, @07:18AM (2 children)
Well, as always, it depends...
For instance
What a "world" mean? Is Moon a world or not?
What does "visiting" mean? Is an "orbital flyby" included in visiting or not?
What does "flight" mean? Is the travel through the interplanetary space an actual "flight"?
And last but not least, what do you mean by "point"? Not like anything that humans are launching have the extent of a geometrical point.
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday July 07 2021, @07:28AM (1 child)
Well, even if you considered a moon a world, yes, getting there involved powered flight. So far, as far as I know we neither sent a glider up there nor did the Jules Verne version of a large cannon ever catch on.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 07 2021, @03:29PM
No, but the Lunar Lander did fly to get them off that rock.
Considering planets as worlds, all of the Mars Landers were just braking when landing. Still, any Mars Lander that used rockets for braking or especially any maneuvering thrusters. Could be called powered flight, in which case, yeah, that' not really new either. Though, what is new is that something landed on Mars and then flew, rinse and repeat x8 or so.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @08:09AM (2 children)
It's really nice to read that something is not broken on first try! It is definitely challenging to design these things considering the atmospheric conditions are completely different from Earth's. Did they do a test flight in some vacuum chamber with similar atmospheric makeup to Mars before going there or just numerical simulation?
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Wednesday July 07 2021, @10:18AM (1 child)
I found this slide deck:
https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2014/49997/CL%2318-2891.pdf?sequence=1 [nasa.gov]
Maybe associated with paywalled article here:
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2018-0023 [aiaa.org]
Slide 15:
"Demonstrated Autonomous Controlled Flight in Mars-like Atmosphere in JPL 25-foot Space Simulator"
JPL space simulator: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/butowsky4/space20.htm [nps.gov]
Presumably built before "simulator" meant "Computer simulation" and when feet as in 12 inches were a thing!
Article may be more informative.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday July 07 2021, @11:15AM
Here is the article not paywalled:
https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_AIAA2018_0023.pdf [nasa.gov]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @09:52AM (1 child)
We'll know somethings wrong the day that SoylentNews doesn't print a story about NASA's little toy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @01:21PM
I might be wrong, but I think they skipped the 8th flight.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 07 2021, @01:57PM (4 children)
Early on, it appeared that JPL was going to do a half-dozen flights or so, then abandon the helicopter. That would have been such a waste. They need to get all they can get from it, and keep flying it right up until it is lost due to weather and/or it wears out. They need to get as many flight-minutes in as possible, so they can get data on wear and tear. They also need to collect all the mapping data possible. Don't waste resources, make full use of them! Any other course of action is almost criminal.
Losing the helicopter (it will be lost, eventually) will be a disappointment. Wasting any opportunity to use it would be a much bigger disappointment. I hope NASA has at least tentative plans to keep using it for the next two years.
"No, we don't expect it to survive the winter season, but just in case it does, we have plans!" THAT is the attitude needed.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday July 07 2021, @02:24PM
In my experience with following NASA's exploration exploits they already have that mindset.
They regularly make use of equipment far, far beyond their designed lifespans. Look up how they've gotten 25+ years out of the SOHO probe. They're still using the Voyagers to gather scientific data after nearly 44 years. There are numerous other machines that they have milked for all they're worth and then some.
So yeah, they have that attitude.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @02:33PM
There was never any danger of JPL abandoning it. They would have met the minimum success requirements with the first flight or two, which is what their funding would have been tied to. In fact, I would have to do some deep Googling to find out what their funding would have been for, since it was considered a "demonstration mission." They would have needed to get additional funding for an "extended mission." JPL knows the PR game better than anyone. Their public "well, sorry kids, I guess we're just going to have to turn it off forever if they don't give us permission to continue" was as ingenuous as the parent who warns the unruly kid in the back "if you don't behave, I'm going to turn this car around and go home!" after having dropped several thousand dollars on the vacation they are driving to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @08:04PM (1 child)
It's all about managing expectations. If NASA had said ingenuity would accompany the rover and then it had crashed on its 6th flight then it would have been a FAILURE. They took a lesson from Star Trek's Scotty
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 08 2021, @09:22AM
Or anybody who ended up working under an MBA. When the one big trick from management school is apparently to take the estimated time and give half, the natural adjustment for the engineer is to then simply double his estimated time. Of course they then outsource it to India who do get it done in half the time. The problem being that it then works 100% correctly 25% of the time.
Ah, "business" as a profession in and of itself is so absurd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 07 2021, @09:21PM
i wonder if it's playing the national anthem while it flies all over the place?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 11 2021, @07:02PM
Brown Vaginas