I am disappointed to learn that another robot has ended its mission — the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. Scott Manley breaks down the details.
Wow, those are some amazing shots of Martian landscapes, too. Send more probes!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Just the IDEA of having a helicopter on Mars is amazing!
If it was up to TFG, he’d have one on the Moon also, too, just to show those NASA smarties what a big brain he has
If it couldn’t fly for long due to overheating, couldn’t they have just had it rev up the motor for a couple minutes as needed to get through the winter without freezing? Of course I have no idea how often “as needed” would be…
@1: Well, obviously a chopper would work even better on the moon, with lower gravity and no pesky atmosphere bogging down the rotors!
Then problem now is that two of the blades are broken, making the rotor asymmetric, and the high speed they have to spin at would shake the machine apart.
It’s like the high speed centrifuge I sometimes work with. It has to be properly balanced!
With the blades spinning at 2400+ RPM, and the blades being as light as possible , any ground strike will be a mission ender.
But it’s probably safe to say that flying drones will become a staple of Mars exploration.
The Reynolds number of the thin atmosphere requires the blades to spin very fast indeed.
I’m surprised that they went with bare propellers, rather than ducted rings. That’d have protected from brushing the ground and increased lift. To hazard a guess, guess the increased mass offset any gain in lift.
Of course, NASA wasn’t fond of Ingenuity, basically considering it a money pit, compared to the ground based rovers. Based upon the arguments I’ve read, seemed more personality based objections than that silly little crazy sciencey stuff.
I’m not sad. Ingenuity massively outperformed its expected lifespan and mission parameters and even the way it broke will help designers with the next generation of flyers.
Vale and thankyou Ingenuity. Huge success that far outperformed expectations and blazed a trail for more magnificent robotic flying machines.
Good article on this here :
https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/25/rest-in-peace-nasas-ingenuity-helicopter-took-its-last-flight-on-mars/
Plus some good youtube clips on this here where NASA’s Mars Helicopter Team Says Goodbye (1 min long) and here with a mini-doco on Ingenuity before it went to Mars by Veritasium which is 16 mins long.
wzrd1 @6:
Yes, mass was critical, and given the needs of the primary mission (a few test flights in a flat area) protective rings wouldn’t have been deemed a priority anyway, given something else would have had to be left out.
@7. chrislawson :“I’m not sad. Ingenuity massively outperformed its expected lifespan and mission parameters and even the way it broke will help designers with the next generation of flyers.”
Quoting for truth. Spot on.
Noit only is not sad but also Scott manley -much as I respect him & love his channel so much – got it surprisingly wrong in his Tragic Final Flight Of NASA’s Martian Helicopter – Stranded in Neretva Vallis title. Ingenuity has been a triumph NOT a tragedy and it shares it’s new forever home, well home world, with plenty of other robotic explorers – many much less successful than it’s been. If we really need to anthropomorphse; Ingenuity has ended up resting in power exactly where it was meant to be, in a spot it has earnt and deserves after completing so much more of it’s labours than it was orginally scheduled to do and having over-achieved in its longer and happier and more wonder-delivering lifetime, has now become a part of the world it was bound and designed for.
I wonder whenever this happens and we are told that the device was only supposed to last 1 year or 5 trips or whatever.
Do they give minimum estimates so that they can tell us how much they exceed them?
Howard @11:
Kind of. There’s always a defined set of key objectives to accomplish in the first few days/weeks/months of any mission — i.e. the primary mission. If and when those objectives are met, the mission is declared a success, but the planning doesn’t stop there, and they always have plans and objective in place for the extended mission should the hardware remain operational (and the funding is available), and given how much design and testing any space mission requires just to ensure it survives to the end of the primary mission, the planners know it’s likely they will be able to continue the extended mission indefinitely, all being well.
The rovers Spirit and Opportunity had primary missions that lasted 90 days, but their extended missions continued for over 2000 and 5000 days respectively. It would have disappointing if they had failed after 90 days, but their primary missions would still have achieved all the main objectives. Likewise if Ingenuity had only lasted five flights.
So while they are kind of deliberately under-promising and over-delivering, they’re doing it for good planning reasons, not because of the PR value (though that doesn’t hurt, I guess).
NASA is certainly enthused about drones now! Take a look at the Dragonfly quadcoptor they want to send to Titan, hopefully launching in 2028.
Hopefully if Musk actually does get a mission to Mars launched the crew won’t get a chance to land near any of the existing spacecraft on Mars. Because Musk will probably make them go grab pieces from them for his own personal collection.
@ 11. Howard Brazee : “Do they give minimum estimates so that they can tell us how much they exceed them?”
So Scotty’s truick in Star Trek basically ya reckon?
@ pilgham : “Take a look at the Dragonfly quadcoptor they want to send to Titan, hopefully launching in 2028.”
Yes! Absolutely -see :
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-dragonfly-will-fly-around-titan-looking-for-origins-signs-of-life/
Plus : https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/dragonfly
As well as Flying A Drone On Saturn’s Moon Titan | Moon Explorers | BBC Earth Science
.. 7 minutes long that last youtube clip in #16.
There’s also a longer (fifteen minutes) mini-doco Real Engineering
clip here – NASA’s Dragonfly Mission to Titan & shorter (one & a half mins) Dragonfly: NASA’s New Mission to Explore Saturn’s Moon Titan clip by NASA to suit folks levels of intrest and time available preferenc es here.
Also China is planning a helicopter for Mars too :
Source : https://www.space.com/china-mars-helicopter-sample-return-plans
Plus there are plenty of other ideas about what drones can do on other planets in our solar system as well.(Pictures drones flying in the clouds of Venus sufficiently engineered to cope with sulphuric acid rain and in the clouds of Neptune, Jupiter, etc..)
Yeah! Why pollute one planet when we can pollute TWO!
facepalm
Neanderthals.