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

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

#1

Post 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/

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

#2

Post by smp »


From Space.com:
"NASA may attempt 1st Mars helicopter flight on Monday"

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

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

#3

Post by Graeme1858 »


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

#4

Post by helicon »


Thanks for posting the tweet Graeme. Looking forward to catching it live.
-Michael
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Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

#5

Post by Graeme1858 »


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

#6

Post by smp »


From Ars Technica:
"NASA has flown a helicopter on Mars, and it went brilliantly"

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

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

#7

Post 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

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

#8

Post by smp »


From SpaceNews.com:
"Ingenuity performs first flight on Mars"

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

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

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Post by helicon »


Caught it early on facebook...pretty cool and a key accomplishment!
-Michael
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Re: NASA says its Mars helicopter is ready for a historic first flight

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

#11

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

#12

Post 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.

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

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Post 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.

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

#14

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

#15

Post 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

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

#16

Post 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!

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

#17

Post by Graeme1858 »


A bit scary when it goes off camera!

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

#18

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

#19

Post 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

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

#20

Post by Graeme1858 »


______________________________________________
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ASI1600MM Pro, ASI294MC Pro, ASI224MC
ZWO EFW, ZWO OAG, ASI220MM Mini.
APM 11x70 ED APO Binoculars.

https://www.averywayobservatory.co.uk/
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