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NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 8:48 pm
by smp
From Ars Technica:
"The space agency announced on Saturday that it will attempt to fly the small, 1.8kg helicopter early on Monday. The first flight is scheduled to take place at about 3:30am ET (07:30 UTC). It will take a few hours to relay data from the helicopter to the Perseverance rover, and then to an orbiting satellite and back to Earth. So NASA anticipates receiving the first data back from Mars some time after 6:15am ET."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04 ... st-flight/

smp

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 8:49 pm
by smp
From Space.com:
"NASA may attempt 1st Mars helicopter flight on Monday"

https://www.space.com/mars-helicopter-i ... il-19-2021

smp

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:36 am
by Graeme1858

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:34 pm
by helicon
Thanks for posting the tweet Graeme. Looking forward to catching it live.

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:27 am
by Graeme1858

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2021 1:10 pm
by smp
From Ars Technica:
"NASA has flown a helicopter on Mars, and it went brilliantly"

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04 ... st-flight/

smp

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2021 1:11 pm
by smp
From Space.com:
"NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity takes off on historic 1st powered flight on another world"

https://www.space.com/mars-helicopter-i ... ht-success

smp

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2021 1:12 pm
by smp
From SpaceNews.com:
"Ingenuity performs first flight on Mars"

https://spacenews.com/ingenuity-perform ... t-on-mars/

smp

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:10 pm
by helicon
Caught it early on facebook...pretty cool and a key accomplishment!

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:56 pm
by bearnard00
The rotor speed was approximately 5x what would have been needed to lift the same weight here on earth due to the low air pressure/density. They plan on using larger aircraft in the future to move scientific packages around but they will have to have correspondingly fast rotor speeds or larger rotors to compensate for the difference in density.

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2021 2:23 pm
by Richard
Ok but the gravity is much lower I think around 60% lower so that should help , but I am no aero engineer but do know that helicopters cant reach great height so why not use something else?

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2021 3:42 pm
by smp
I believe this mission and equipment is a proof-of-concept for larger vehicles in the future that would be able to move scientific equipment from place to place faster than the rover can do crawling on land, widening our ability to remotely explore this planet, and maybe also useful for exploring other planets also.

smp

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2021 3:46 pm
by helicon
smp wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 3:42 pm I believe this mission and equipment is a proof-of-concept for larger vehicles in the future that would be able to move scientific equipment from place to place faster than the rover can do crawling on land, widening our ability to remotely explore this planet, and maybe also useful for exploring other planets also.

smp
Yeah, I guess the obstacle to overcome is the thinness of the atmosphere, at least on Mars. It would be nice to try the same on Venus, at least high enough so that the atmospheric pressure doesn't crush the aerial vehicle.

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2021 7:27 am
by bearnard00
That's a pretty great achievement for the Perseverance mission and for whole space exploration area. Excellent work by NASA's scientists and engineers. I guess that this flight will help humans in futher Mars exploration and of course it will help in making the first crewed mission to the red planet

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:54 pm
by smp
Here's an article from Phts.org detailing the second flight:
"NASA's Mars helicopter makes second flight"

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-nasa-mars ... light.html

smp

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2021 12:30 pm
by smp
From Space.com:
"Mars helicopter Ingenuity snaps a pic of rover tracks, will attempt 3rd flight Sunday"

https://www.space.com/mars-helicopter-i ... 3rd-flight

The 3rd flight is coming up!

smp

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 5:10 am
by Graeme1858
A bit scary when it goes off camera!


Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 3:18 pm
by bearnard00
Have you alrwady seen the picture that has been made by Ingenuity helicopter? The image has been taken on 17 feet above the ground and showes us Mars` rusty, red surface of Mars. https://hypebeast.com/2021/4/nasa-mars- ... ign=ig_bio

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 1:07 pm
by smp
From Space.com today:
"NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity will attempt its boldest flight yet today"

"The 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity is expected to take off at 10:12 a.m. EDT (1412 GMT) to make its fourth aerial sortie. The data from the flight should arrive at JPL at 1:21 p.m. EDT (1721 GMT), NASA officials said. "

https://www.space.com/mars-helicopter-i ... rth-flight

smp

Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 7:28 pm
by Graeme1858