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Due to blade damage, Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will not fly again

nasa.gov

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Re: Due to blade damage, Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will not fly again

#181

Post by RugnirViking »

I don't know a lot about these missions. Does the rover have a sample gathering arm? would it be possible for the helicopter to be picked up and set onto something? or carried around? seems like it would be useful to have the backup connection route to the rover like when they used the helicopter to troubleshoot the rover a while back. Or alternatively even as a backup sensor suite for the rover.

Plus the imagery of the rover carrying around its wounded little friend is too nice to pass up on

Re: Due to blade damage, Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will not fly again

#183

Post by benj111 »

vel0city wrote: post #147
benj111 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. If the primary point was to put a man on the moon, the cost of bringing things back is basically free. If on the other hand the primary mission was bringing back as many rocks as possible, then yes, the return would be very expensive.

> the cost of bringing things back is basically free. No, because they'd still have to pay to bring all the extra fuel to get the junk back up off the moon and back to Earth. And before that spend the cost of that extra fuel getting it up there. When every pound is like thousands of dollars it really adds up.

But at that point the price has already been paid. If you bring back rocks, or air. Same cost.

If I take a first class flight, how much does it cost to take my phone? Yes I could apportion a fraction of the cost of the ticket to the phone, but most would say free.

Now if the whole purpose of the flight were to get the phone from London to new York, the entire cost should be attributable to the phone, it is the reason for the journey.

Was extra fuel specifically brought? Or was it just safety margin? The Landers had spare fuel when they landed, is that waste, or safety margin?

Re: Due to blade damage, Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will not fly again

#185

Post by rcxdude »

geor9e wrote: post #127
donquichotte wrote: post #56

For anyone interested in the structure of the software that ran Ingenuity (and some hardware design aspects, such as the use of commercial off-the-shelve parts), there is an awesome and critically underwatched video of Timothy Canham explaining everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQu9m4MG5Gc&t=7s

I always thought it was crazy that NASA uses a FPGA/microcontroller/cell phone SOC setup, which makes total sense to me, but mundane industrial things like the traffic light at an intersection needs a giant cabinet with shelves of crazy seimens controllers, it feels like such overkill in comparison, you can see them on this channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udpB-en9KKM . The guy is always arguing with the comme…

It's all about SIL rating, and flexibility. Industrial control is basically like lego bricks with a mile of paperwork for the safety-critical bricks.

Re: Due to blade damage, Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will not fly again

#187

Post by ragnot »

ballooney wrote: post #175
geor9e wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought it was crazy that NASA uses a FPGA/microcontroller/cell phone SOC setup, which makes total sense to me, but mundane industrial things like the traffic light at an intersection needs a giant cabinet with shelves of crazy seimens controllers, it feels like such overkill in comparison, you can see them on this channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udpB-en9KKM . The guy is always arguing with the comme…

Infact, NASA wouldn’t use that sort of SOC for anything critical like the rover itself. Ingenuity was always a marginal experiment with a correspondingly high appetite for risk and ability to accept budgetary compromises.

I'm curious what do they use then? Seems like using an FPGA for sensor gathering and some guidance loops with microcontroller logic control is sensible. I've run into scenarios where just the sensior gathering/IO can take up a significant portion of the time slice of the microcontroller.

Re: Due to blade damage, Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will not fly again

#188

Post by _joel »

ballooney wrote: post #175
geor9e wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought it was crazy that NASA uses a FPGA/microcontroller/cell phone SOC setup, which makes total sense to me, but mundane industrial things like the traffic light at an intersection needs a giant cabinet with shelves of crazy seimens controllers, it feels like such overkill in comparison, you can see them on this channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udpB-en9KKM . The guy is always arguing with the comme…

Infact, NASA wouldn’t use that sort of SOC for anything critical like the rover itself. Ingenuity was always a marginal experiment with a correspondingly high appetite for risk and ability to accept budgetary compromises.

Sure, it was a test platform, to prove that they can use a less RAD hardened design by using the more novel approach. I'd imagine future rovers will definitely use a similar approach.
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