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What's the point of flying a helicopter on Mars? What scientifically relevant data do you get? Its fun and cool but why?
Also, you can't really(easily) get a helicoper stuck on rocks :)
What's the point of flying a helicopter on Mars? What scientifically relevant data do you get? Its fun and cool but why?
I would have thought atmospheric data that you can't get elsewhere - you'd be able to learn things about pressure and wind at altitudes that rovers can't get to.
Unfortunately the article does not talk about how this helicopter would fare in a sandstorm. Are the winds strong enough to tip it over?
What's the point of flying a helicopter on Mars? What scientifically relevant data do you get? Its fun and cool but why?
I imagine it's purely for mission planning complexity reasons. But a more sensible approach seems to be to say "after 30 days you have to limit comms to 100 bytes/sec back to earth and stay 100 meters from the rover".
In the future I could imagine the more modern processor on the helicopter might become handy... Some neural network based navigation system might run on it but not the rover main cpu... Also the helicopter might be able to get very good aerial photos that could be turned into 3d models to figure out the best spots to do science. It should be able to see much better than orbital radars.
So many interesting details in this article. Snapdragon 801-based hw running Linux, sensor fusion from three sensors whereof some bought COTS from sparkfun (who make breakout boards for sensors, basically the sensor datasheet recommended design). 3 flights planned, but potentially more which will be planned after the three first. 30 day lifetime window, due to dependecy on the rover, which needs to conserve resources…
My big question is where does it land? Does it dock with the rover? It seems to power itself via a solar array. About 100 days into the mission they plan on launching the helicopter for the tiny lifespan window.
I think the limit on its lifespan is really, "How long until destroyed by wind/dust". And then how long until it cannot charge its own batteries/sustain itself.
Also can't you use a kind of balloon instead to save power?
So many interesting details in this article. Snapdragon 801-based hw running Linux, sensor fusion from three sensors whereof some bought COTS from sparkfun (who make breakout boards for sensors, basically the sensor datasheet recommended design). 3 flights planned, but potentially more which will be planned after the three first. 30 day lifetime window, due to dependecy on the rover, which needs to conserve resources…
This is the coolest part of the mission IMO. My big question is where does it land? Does it dock with the rover? It seems to power itself via a solar array. About 100 days into the mission they plan on launching the helicopter for the tiny lifespan window. I think the limit on its lifespan is really, "How long until destroyed by wind/dust". And then how long until it cannot charge its own batteries/sustain itself.
It lands on the ground. And yes, dust on the panels is a big concern. (I work at JPL but not on Perseverance / Ingenuity)
It needs a temperature differential to generate electric current and it looks to have fins for convective cooling but the atmospheric pressure is a few % of that of sea level Earth.
So many interesting details in this article. Snapdragon 801-based hw running Linux, sensor fusion from three sensors whereof some bought COTS from sparkfun (who make breakout boards for sensors, basically the sensor datasheet recommended design). 3 flights planned, but potentially more which will be planned after the three first. 30 day lifetime window, due to dependecy on the rover, which needs to conserve resources…