41–50 of 150 posts
We will use more helicopters instead of rovers for new missions ? Or larger crafts would be much harder or riskier to use ? Or maybe have a helicopter that can move the rover with the equipment to different locations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a thin atmosphere, lifting a heavier payload needs bigger rotors or increased RPM, which increases power demands and structural stress. The challenge is to keep the vehicle light enough to fly while also making it sturdy enough to carry the payload and survive environments.
Why can’t “more rotors” be another solution?
It was probably just stuck in a tree.
On Jupiter Broadcasting there was a lot of interviews on how this was a Linux powered device and could be the first of many new Linux devices on Mars by JPL. If I remembered correctly they used a space hardened Power cpu with an ancient version of Yocto since the newer versions of it did not have working drivers. When the rover had an issue they actually used the helicoptor's userspace command line GNU utilities to d…
Some info from Wikipedia:
> The rover's computer uses the BAE Systems RAD750 radiation-hardened single board computer based on a ruggedized PowerPC G3 microprocessor (PowerPC 750). The computer contains 128 megabytes of volatile DRAM, and runs at 133 MHz. The flight software runs on the VxWorks operating system, is written in C and is able to access 4 gigabytes of NAND non-volatile memory on a separate card.
Didn't this use mostly off the shelf parts? If so, I wonder how this will impact costs on future missions. If they can do more with consumer hardware, they can save budget to apply toward more science.
Yes, it did. I like the sentiment but I wonder how much conflict of interest would undermine this idea. Imagine how many companies are involved in developing space grade one-off hardware! Also, why would a highly bureaucratic structure undercut the amount of money that they themselves are asking for (and receiving) out of a budget? Savings are not aligned with the interest of such structure. Its not that for the amou…
Didn't this use mostly off the shelf parts? If so, I wonder how this will impact costs on future missions. If they can do more with consumer hardware, they can save budget to apply toward more science.
> He got a quote back for $120,000. “Elon laughed,” Davis said. “He said, 'That part is no more complicated than a garage door opener. Your budget is five thousand dollars. Go make it work.’”
On Jupiter Broadcasting there was a lot of interviews on how this was a Linux powered device and could be the first of many new Linux devices on Mars by JPL. If I remembered correctly they used a space hardened Power cpu with an ancient version of Yocto since the newer versions of it did not have working drivers. When the rover had an issue they actually used the helicoptor's userspace command line GNU utilities to d…
> If I remembered correctly they used a space hardened Power cpu If you're remembering correctly, then I'm misremembering in that this has essentially a Snapdragon chip and not a rad hardened CPU at all
Didn't this use mostly off the shelf parts? If so, I wonder how this will impact costs on future missions. If they can do more with consumer hardware, they can save budget to apply toward more science.
It does bode well for sending cheaper "nice to have" experiments on missions, though.
We will use more helicopters instead of rovers for new missions ? Or larger crafts would be much harder or riskier to use ? Or maybe have a helicopter that can move the rover with the equipment to different locations.
Why not some helium balloon type craft that could float along with low power for longer periods of times? Could cover vast distances? Descend into fertile plains looking for samples?