11–20 of 128 posts
Make bounce landing work on another planet. Make powered landing on another planet routine. Make remove vehicle operations on another planet routine. Make soft landing with a rocket sky crane routine.
Why does the BBC use "Nasa" instead of "NASA"?
>Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec). http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art201307021...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like it might be feasible: the atmosphere on the surface of Mars is described as the equivalent of Earth at "100,000 feet" (30 km) but the record for a weather balloon is 53km, and balloons carrying people have gone as high as 40km. The helicopter being proposed is "the size of a softball", though, and not the main focus of the mission. The high altitude weather balloons have been much bigger and would prob…
Why don't they test the helicopter at 100k feet then?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like it might be feasible: the atmosphere on the surface of Mars is described as the equivalent of Earth at "100,000 feet" (30 km) but the record for a weather balloon is 53km, and balloons carrying people have gone as high as 40km. The helicopter being proposed is "the size of a softball", though, and not the main focus of the mission. The high altitude weather balloons have been much bigger and would prob…
Why don't they test the helicopter at 100k feet then?
I would guess that sending a test helicopter along with another rover would be to do a feasibility test for larger flight-based probes in the future. Test it now with a small helicopter, and you use 10-20 pounds of payload in order to do better wind and atmospheric studies. On the other hand, if you send a probe that uses flight as its primary mode of transportation, and some unknown unknown causes it to fail, you've scrapped the entire mission.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like it might be feasible: the atmosphere on the surface of Mars is described as the equivalent of Earth at "100,000 feet" (30 km) but the record for a weather balloon is 53km, and balloons carrying people have gone as high as 40km. The helicopter being proposed is "the size of a softball", though, and not the main focus of the mission. The high altitude weather balloons have been much bigger and would prob…
Why don't they test the helicopter at 100k feet then?
"The helicopter uses counter-rotating coaxial rotors about 1.1 m in diameter. Its payload will be a high resolution downward-looking camera for navigation, landing, and science surveying of the terrain, and a communication system to relay data to the 2020 Mars rover. The inconsistent Mars magnetic field precludes the use of a compass for navigation, so it would require a solar tracker camera integrated to JPL's visual inertial navigation system. Some additional inputs might include gyros, visual odometry, tilt sensors, altimeter, and hazard detectors. It would use solar panels to recharge its batteries."
[0] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/mars-helicopter-to-fly-on...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Mars_Helicopter_Scout
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like it might be feasible: the atmosphere on the surface of Mars is described as the equivalent of Earth at "100,000 feet" (30 km) but the record for a weather balloon is 53km, and balloons carrying people have gone as high as 40km. The helicopter being proposed is "the size of a softball", though, and not the main focus of the mission. The high altitude weather balloons have been much bigger and would prob…
Why don't they test the helicopter at 100k feet then?
Why does the BBC use "Nasa" instead of "NASA"?
>Where you would normally say the abbreviation as a string of letters - an initialism - use all capitals with no full stops or spaces (eg FA, UNHCR, NUT). However, our style is to use lower case with an initial cap for acronyms, where you would normally pronounce the set of letters as a word (eg Aids, Farc, Eta, Nafta, Nasa, Opec, Apec). http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/article/art201307021...
I always thought that for exploring another planet, you shouldn't really use something with wheels or wings.
Something different like small "jumping robots" would make a lot more sense in a place where you have literally the ability to do 0-hardware maintenance.
Instead of a single expensive flying robot, why not send a fleet of these little small jumping-robots instead, to more quickly and cheaply explore the area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo