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Fun fact: This is not the first time a space program has flown on another planet. The Soviets launched weather balloons on Venus during the Venera missions [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program#Balloon
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the fascinating things about space silicon is that NASA spends many years hardening specific processors to withstand the types of shocks and electromagnetic interference from space travel. These intensive processes mean that the equipment they can use is always 10-20 years behind the modern equivalents.
and yet they are fine with using a snapdragon arm processor on the helicopter?
On top of that, I'm sure JPL would love to move with the times, which is why the helicopter is using the more modern processor.
One of the things I find really cool about Ingenuity is how it is in large based on consumer hardware. The main processor is a Snapdragon 801 running Linux which communicates with Perseverance using the Zigbee protocol [1]. Perseverance on the other hand uses a RAD750 from 2001! If successful I hope this can lead to more modern hardware for these kinds of missions in general. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenui…
The problem is that NASA is designed around long term and expensive projects. At one point, a fast iterating company like space-x will surpass their achievements.
NASA should be about long term and expensive projects, SpaceX is just a tool to achieve that goal which is to do new science regardless of whether it is in the air or in space.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CPU will probably be destroyed by radiation before long. I'd guess the key factors here were weight, power draw, size and perhaps performance. A radiation-hardened CPU probably didn't fit the bill. It's also super expensive.
> perhaps performance absolutely performance. Yes to the other three for sure, but the engineers reported that there was no way they were running flight control using image tracking on a 200MHz CPU.
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It’s less about longevity and more about reducing errors. Interestingly, Ingenuity has some sort of watchdog that can reset the Snapdragon in-flight fast enough to recover if there is an error.
Reminds me of Apollo 11, where the computer kept resetting on the way down to the lunar surface but still got Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon with the whole world watching.
The team had recently seen similar failures in simulation, and was able to quickly decide it was okay to proceed.
That said, I'm super excited. I hope we get VR video at some point. I want to soar over martian hills. These guys are my heros.
Fun fact: This is not the first time a space program has flown on another planet. The Soviets launched weather balloons on Venus during the Venera missions [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program#Balloon
For sure the soviets did some neat science work but I think a motorized helicopters flying on Mars is pretty darn cool too compared to a ballon floating in a dense atmosphere it even feels like an advancement
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/12/us/soviet-drops-weather-b...
The headline implies it will be soon, but the article doesn't give any information on when the first flight + footage is planned to happen. Tomorrow, days, weeks?
Fun fact: This is not the first time a space program has flown on another planet. The Soviets launched weather balloons on Venus during the Venera missions [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_program#Balloon