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Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The helicopter uses counter-rotating coaxial rotors about 1.1 m in diameter..." Not to be little it but, in short, a drone. I presume the rocket scientists are jealous ;)
Of course. It's by definition until we get someone to Mars.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The helicopter uses counter-rotating coaxial rotors about 1.1 m in diameter..." Not to be little it but, in short, a drone. I presume the rocket scientists are jealous ;)
The funny thing is that you could almost classify most space missions as drones (or probes).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't too hard to simulate low gravity, all you need to do is move a large aircraft in the appropriate parabolic pattern. My understanding is that this is already how NASA trains astronauts for zero-g environments, and how weightlessness is done in space movies. Adjusting the path to match Mars gravity should not be difficult.
True, but you cannot test a small helicopter inside an aircraft, can you?
Link to the underlying press release [0] which has slightly more info than the BBC article. There is a bit more background about the project at [1], with some key points being: "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…
"The helicopter uses counter-rotating coaxial rotors about 1.1 m in diameter..." Not to be little it but, in short, a drone. I presume the rocket scientists are jealous ;)
When i think "quadcopter", I think of something smaller than what NASA has proposed.
If this is the sort of experiment that is getting space on a rocket then I kind of wonder if NASA is out of ideas. In other news, Hepatitis C is making a big comeback here in Denver. It's the sort of disease we used to laugh about being a "third world" problem back in the day. We don't use the term "third world" anymore, but we are becoming one nonetheless. I can't stop thinking about what archaeologists will think a…
Are you a markov chain?
Link to the underlying press release [0] which has slightly more info than the BBC article. There is a bit more background about the project at [1], with some key points being: "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…
"The helicopter uses counter-rotating coaxial rotors about 1.1 m in diameter..." Not to be little it but, in short, a drone. I presume the rocket scientists are jealous ;)
I mean, drones are just a new name for hobby aircraft. People typically associate drones with quad-copters, but people were flying tiny helicopters next to their small replica remote aircraft for decades.
I realize the FAA has official designations for what is a drone (and a lot of older hobby aircrafts may now technically be drones), but it's a word that's really come about because the field is now more accessible/affordable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> GPS is already less accurate the further from equator you get, as all the visible satellites are increasingly on one side of you. Not contradicting you, but just to be clear: GPS satellites are not in geostationary orbits above the equator, or even in geosynchronous orbits. Rather, they are in medium-Earth orbits and their time-averaged density over the Earth is only a little lower over the poles as the equator. At…
Hmm, not sure I understand what you're saying. Figure 5 in that paper is the situation I'm describing: at a certain latitude (52 deg north in this case, incidentally that latitude is my 'hood) there are no satellites visible to the north. Figure 2(b) illustrates why that's bad for precision.
(And I corrected my comment to refer to figure 4, not 2.)
Does anybody knows what is the autonomy of this helicopter ?
I'm sure NASA has mapped out some waypoints, but there's no way to really control the actual flight remotely without a human in orbit.