posted 07-14-2016 02:45 PM               

This thread is intended for comments and questions regarding NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter.

The Ingenuity helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, will demonstrate the potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet.

posted 08-31-2019 06:21 AM               

Engineers attached NASA's Mars Helicopter, which will be the first aircraft to fly on another planet, to the belly of the Mars 2020 rover...

posted 03-23-2021 05:26 PM               

If you look carefully you'll see (not in all CGI, but in most, and in all actual pictures of Ingenuity) that one footpad has a loop design, as opposed to the other three footpads which are all solid pads.

posted 03-23-2021 05:58 PM               

I asked one of the copter's engineers, Matt Keennon, what the hole in that one leg's foot was for. He replied that it's only for stowage.

"...because of the odd way the copter is held in place under the rover, with all sorts of mechanical constraints from the rover, that one leg could not be held down by a simple lever pressing on the leg strut, so instead it was held lower down on the foot. The bar on that one foot can be thought of as little extra bit of leg 'ankle' for the stowing system to hold onto."

1:00-1:11 of a NASA video shows the legs unfolding one at a time as the rover releases the copter. Ben Pipenberg followed up with Matt:

"...at 1:07 you can see that the closest foot on the left side extends up into the rover belly pan an inch or so. That foot needs to fold up in a way that it doesn't overhang the sample cache system when it's stowed, avoids a hole in the belly pan for a pyro cutter installation step, and stays within the not-to-exceed volume for the heat shield. As a result we had to cut a hole in the belly pan to make the geometry work out when the helicopter is deploying.

"Well, on the other foot there's other rover hardware in the way ... so we can't just cut a big hole there — we needed to move that foot out a few inches, and the easiest solution was to add a handle onto the foot that lets the MHDS system grab it."

I asked one of the copter's engineers, Matt Keennon, what the hole in that one leg's foot was for. He replied that it's only for stowage.

... because of the odd way the copter is held in place under the rover, with all sorts of mechanical constraints from the rover, that one leg could not be held down by a simple lever pressing on the leg strut, so instead it was held lower down on the foot. The bar on that one foot can be thought of as little extra bit of leg 'ankle' for the stowing system to hold onto.

1:00-1:11 of a NASA video shows the legs unfolding one at a time as the rover releases the copter. Ben Pipenberg followed up with Matt:

...at 1:07 you can see that the closest foot on the left side extends up into the rover belly pan an inch or so. That foot needs to fold up in a way that it doesn’t overhang the sample cache system when it’s stowed, avoids a hole in the belly pan for a pyro cutter installation step, and stays within the not-to-exceed volume for the heat shield. As a result we had to cut a hole in the belly pan to make the geometry work out when the helicopter is deploying. Well, on the other foot there’s other rover hardware in the way ... so we can’t just cut a big hole there-- we needed to move that foot out a few inches, and the easiest solution was to add a handle onto the foot that lets the MHDS system grab it.

In this photo, the leg closest to the camera is held by its ankle, but the leg pointing to the right is held by the hole in its foot.

posted 04-01-2021 05:11 PM               

Come fly with us.

Mars Helicopter is preparing to do something that's never been done: controlled, powered flight on another planet. Takeoff is now slated for no earlier than April 11, with data arriving on Earth on April 12.

posted 04-04-2021 11:17 AM               

Mars Helicopter touchdown confirmed! Its 293 million mile (471 million km) journey aboard Perseverance ended with the final drop of 4 inches (10 cm) from the rover's belly to the surface of Mars today. Next milestone? Survive the night.

posted 04-19-2021 05:20 AM               

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter​ is set to make history. It will make the first attempt at powered flight on another planet on Monday, April 19.

Watch live with helicopter team in mission control beginning at 6:15 a.m. EDT (10:15 a.m. UTC) as they receive the data and find out if they were successful.

posted 04-19-2021 07:19 AM               

the first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet!

posted 04-19-2021 12:56 PM               

Today, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter​ became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet.

Join a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 UTC) for an analysis of Ingenuity's first flight and what this means for NASA.

posted 04-19-2021 04:20 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Ingenuity is the first aircraft...

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posted 04-19-2021 05:11 PM               

the mixture of invisible odorless tasteless gases (such as nitrogen and oxygen) that surrounds the earth

also: the equivalent mix of gases on another planet, e.g. the thin, frigid air of Mars.

posted 04-19-2021 09:58 PM               

While I fully appreciate the technology required to achieve this significant milestone, I feel that it is not as significant as some of the other engineering achievements that NASA and its partners have achieved in the past.

The landing system for Curiosity and Perseverance, to me, is a greater achievement because it enabled a comparatively greater mass of scientific equipment to be remotely delivered to the surface of another planet than previously achieved that could, in turn, achieve more in the field of surface exploration.

Flying a drone on Mars is more of an add-on to the technology that exists here on Earth that school kids play with every day. Drone manufacturers have developed autonomous drone operations designed to deliver freight and fast food, remote and dangerous area inspection, and a myriad of other applications.

High altitude (rarefied atmosphere) aerodynamics is a well-studied area, and while the challenges were significant, remote drone operation is not a technology spearhead anymore. The technology to manufacture lightweight materials, miniaturize electronics, package it all together has enabled this flight to happen. Combining these technologies was an inevitable step and something that has been under consideration for some time (Red Planet). The challenge of making an operable submersible autonomous ROV capable of reaching the greatest depths of Earth's oceans is probably a greater engineering challenge.

I appreciate more the engineering that went into packing, deploying, the system surviving on Mars, and the remote exchange of software data, than the first flight achievement. Spinning some rotors to produce controllable lift is a well-understood physics experiment and the results are not so surprising. I think the achievement is cool, and hope that having this capability expands our understanding of Mars. Having a fleet of these drones would be an amazing tool for Mars exploration.

posted 04-19-2021 10:40 PM               

Altimeter data confirms that Ingenuity has performed its first flight...

posted 04-20-2021 09:02 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by oly:
Flying a drone on Mars is more of an add-on to the technology that exists here on Earth that school kids play with every day.

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Purely as to terminology, whether you call it a rotorcraft or a helicopter or a drone, you could use those interchangeably. I think one of the connotations of 'drone' here is that it has a little bit of the off-the-shelf, you go buy it at your favorite store and you can fly it out of the box. Ingenuity is quite different.

It had to be designed from the ground up for a very alien, very harsh environment. We don't have drones that survive -130 degrees Fahrenheit at night, we don't have drones that fly in one percent of the atmosphere of Earth.

So, if you're careful about using the word 'drone' and your remember that this is a very, very, very, special drone, you can say drone. But I just want to make sure that people don't lose track of the fact that it is a very special aircraft that is quite unique.

posted 04-20-2021 04:29 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by damnyankee36:
He said a quad copter would been much easier to design since there is so much technology being pumped into these designs already.

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First, you need quite a bit of blade lifting surface in such a thin atmosphere. A quad of similar dimensions (i.e. fitting aboard Perseverance) would likely have far too small rotor blades. Secondly, I doubt that they really want to mess about with the reliability issues of running four engines in that hostile environment, rather than taking very good care of one.

posted 04-26-2021 10:53 AM               

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter takes off and lands in this video captured on April 25, 2021, by Mastcam-Z, an imager aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover.

As expected, the helicopter flew out of its field of vision while completing a flight plan that took it 164 feet (50 meters) downrange of the landing spot. Keep watching, the helicopter will return to stick the landing. Top speed for the flight was about 2 meters per second, or about 4.5 miles-per-hour.

posted 04-27-2021 11:39 PM               

So the Perseverance team gave the Ingenuity team 30 days to conduct its flight tests, afterwards the rover will begin its search for samples to cache.

posted 04-28-2021 08:26 AM               

I spy with my little eye... a rover.

See if you can spot Perseverance in this image taken by the Mars Helicopter during its third flight on April 25, 2021. Ingenuity was flying at an altitude of 16 feet (5 m) and about 279 feet (85 m) from the rover at the time.

posted 05-08-2021 09:04 AM               

I have two very large NASA maps dated 1970 that are titled "Mars Mission Planning." It would be marvelous for the cartographers who drew those early maps to see where Mars exploration is, 50 years later.

A long way from Mariner and Viking missions.