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First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

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Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#81

Post by fnord77 »

behnamoh wrote: post #67

The universe is 13.8 billion years old. It took about 7.3 billion years for the Earth to be formed. Then it took roughly 4.48 billion years for the first Hominins to wander on the planet. They evolved for almost 5.998 million years. Then they had small civilizations in the past 0.002 million years. They started flying in the past 0.0001 million years. 0.00005 million years later they landed on the moon. Almost 0.0000…

and then .00015 million years after they died out by the billions and reverted back to the stone age due to the pollution they emitted.

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#82

Post by publicola1990 »

TekMol wrote: post #50
qwertox wrote: post #31

It made me so sad seeing them cheering and clapping, but not getting up and hugging each other :( So much happiness without the ability to vent it. Such a historical moment.

Funny. When I watched that sequence, I was thinking the opposite. That the length of the clapping and cheering would be "too much" for me. I imagined myself being in that room. I probably would have beed very happy, smiling and showing a "thumbs up" sign or something. But I would not clap or cheer. And I certainly would not want to be hugged by some scientist next to me :) How do other engineers here on HN feel about…

I do feel that cheering and clapping was a bit too much for me. If I was involved in something like this, I would have rather preferred a quiet moment of reflection.

Moreover such complex missions can go either way, I think it is perhaps better to be even-tempered and business like about it.

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#84

Post by zoomablemind »

Congrats to the whole Ingenuity team!

Exciting to see so many young faces and women on the team.

Also, I read up on the project lead MiMi Aung [1] - she's very insipring. I remember seeing her interview at the time when the rover was about to land, so much anticipation and hope. Now, so much excitement is truly uplifting.

Congrats!

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiMi_Aung

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#85

Post by spookthesunset »

tkinom wrote: post #78
Amorymeltzer wrote: post #16

Roughly the start of success from the livestream: https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2265 Video (of the video from Perseverance): https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1384099167832735748 (Better version from the livestream in child comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26861334 )

Can't wait until the SpaceX's Starship land the next gen Mars Helicopter that might be 10-20x bigger in 2-4 years.

Knowing spacex, they will deck that thing out with 4K video even if it means dropping a few satellites into Martian orbit to act as relays.

My understanding is that video requires power to transcode and compress, and power is a scarce resource.

This is especially true on ingenuity, which is powered by six 18650 batteries. And most of that power is dumped into just keeping it warm enough to function, not into actually flying.

https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_A...

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#86

Post by progman32 »

TekMol wrote: post #50
qwertox wrote: post #31

It made me so sad seeing them cheering and clapping, but not getting up and hugging each other :( So much happiness without the ability to vent it. Such a historical moment.

Funny. When I watched that sequence, I was thinking the opposite. That the length of the clapping and cheering would be "too much" for me. I imagined myself being in that room. I probably would have beed very happy, smiling and showing a "thumbs up" sign or something. But I would not clap or cheer. And I certainly would not want to be hugged by some scientist next to me :) How do other engineers here on HN feel about…

One year ago I'd have agreed.

Today? I'd be running around like an excited child, given half a chance. Probably hugging people I know are comfortable with it. I recognized I really do like that energy, and I only live once.

Not saying people who prefer a more restrained celebration are not valid in their preference! Everyone is a little different, and that is a good thing. At my workplace we like to have multiple ways to celebrate a milestone, because it's important that everyone can participate if they want. For example, we might have a team lunch/party (pre covid) for folks who like that, but also, say, personalized notes sent out, or office posters made of the achievement with participants' signatures on it (optional), and companywide announcements (again, representation optional).

For the record the only movie that routinely tears me up is Apollo 13. Specifically, when they land, and the people in Mission Control are shown. Some of those people have a lifelong bond because of that event, I'm sure. That's important to me.

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#87

Post by spookthesunset »

Amorymeltzer wrote: post #16

Roughly the start of success from the livestream: https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2265 Video (of the video from Perseverance): https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1384099167832735748 (Better version from the livestream in child comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26861334 )

I hope that in a little while we get an actual video like we got when the whole thing was descending onto the ground.

I am not expecting much from Ingenuity but I would be very disappointed if we didn’t see any video from Perseverance.

I know doing video requires a lot of power, but I really feel it is justified for something like this. It would become a historic video.

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#88

Post by macinjosh »

The engineering nerd factor is huge here and this is an amazing feat! Congrats to all involved.

I am curious what the importance of this is. What overall goal is this research contributing to? Is a mars landing system using "helicopter" style powered flight system the ultimate goal?

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#89

Post by JKCalhoun »

Torkel wrote: post #46
eddyg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two rotor blades are just under 4 feet long, and spin in opposite directions at 2,500rpm. The rotor tips are moving at about 2/3 of the speed of sound on Mars. (For ref, Ingenuity weighed 4 pounds on Earth, so about 1.5 pounds in Martian gravity.)

Good data! Nice how martian gravity makes things lighter. If I'm doing the math correctly I get to to be an exposure time of around 0.1-0.5 ms. Fast!, but not unheard of fast :)

Yeah, lighter but an atmosphere so thin it's harder to get lift.

I wonderful aircraft if it is a net gain or loss — Mars vs. Earth.

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#90

Post by alach11 »

spookthesunset wrote: post #85
tkinom wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't wait until the SpaceX's Starship land the next gen Mars Helicopter that might be 10-20x bigger in 2-4 years.

Knowing spacex, they will deck that thing out with 4K video even if it means dropping a few satellites into Martian orbit to act as relays. My understanding is that video requires power to transcode and compress, and power is a scarce resource. This is especially true on ingenuity, which is powered by six 18650 batteries. And most of that power is dumped into just keeping it warm enough to function, not into actually…

Wouldn't transcoding the video still produce the same amount of heat?
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