51–60 of 210 posts
So, it still landed, upright no less, with a piece of the rotor blade missing? I'd guess that when a piece of rotor comes off during flight, the imbalance would make landing impossible. Very curious to what happened, but probably we'll never know exactly.
They should auction it off. For pickup only, of course. I'd like to own the first helicopter on Mars.
Are images of the damage available to the public? "Imagery revealing damage to the rotor blade arrived several days later." https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/after-three-years-on-mars-nasa...
There is a picture of the helicopter that has arrows in your link, click next and you will see the tip of the blade in a shadow. :(
Damage to the blade tip is apparent in the shadow. But I would try one more flight just to see how it fares in such conditions, if it can be corrected in software etc.
They can easily mimic the damage on earth. While there is more gravity, we can adjust atmosphere and measure lift, vibration and whatever. Probably modern engineering tools can do this all in software, but cutting the blade off a drone on earth is easy. Only if we are convinced by on earth simulation that we can still fly this should we attempt it. Otherwise attempting flight this risks doing more damage to something…
Can they just do one more #YOLO flight at a high speed and high altitude as possible and see what happens? Seems more useful and fun than just leaving it to rot.
> more useful and fun than just leaving it to rot Ginny has an independent solar panel/battery set-up. Perhaps it could be rigged as a lone stationary sensor?
They should auction it off. For pickup only, of course. I'd like to own the first helicopter on Mars.
They should auction it off. For pickup only, of course. I'd like to own the first helicopter on Mars.
Huh, a bit like NFTs (or not at all?), the bragging rights that you have ownership of something on Mars is probably worth some change, especially if you're a billionaire.
From the article: The Perseverance rover is currently too far away to attempt to image the helicopter at its final airfield. I wonder if the rover couldn't proceed to the location of the helicopter and get some high res images for diagnostic purposes. I'm sure they considered that option so maybe the rover's schedule is just too busy to accommodate such a mission. Anyway, R.I.P. Ingenuity and kudos to Nasa for anothe…