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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

#63

Post by Kerb_ »

tempestn wrote: post #51
ragebol wrote: post #46

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.

My guess would be that the rotor struck the ground during landing.

If I'm interpreting the picture correctly, it does look like there is a gouge on the ground in the pic showing the shadow

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

#64

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

mkl wrote: post #47
adastra22 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You joke, but Russia did that with their moon rover.

In 1993, to Richard Garriott, for just $68,000: https://www.space.com/8073-privately-owned-soviet-moon-rover...

Richard Garriot aka Lord British who made the Ultima series of videogames?

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

#65

Post by dcsommer »

synapsomorphy wrote: post #44
contact9879 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Mars Sample Return pretty much dead at this point?

I contributed to the helicopter design for it so I'm biased but I think it'll happen eventually even if the funding isn't approved this administration/year/decade. The already-stashed samples will be up there basically forever, and we'll probably want samples from a few different areas anyways, so it makes sense to go grab them.

Mars has weather, unlike the moon. Will the samples really still be there a decade or two from now?

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

#66

Post by fredthedeadhead »

dfcab wrote: post #12
fredthedeadhead wrote: post #11

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. :(

Thanks, I missed that!

It looks like it landed on quite an incline, almost 45 degrees.

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

#67

Post by bredren »

Was the singular focus on the Wright Brothers' contributions to flight and ingenuity a fair one?

I had thought there was some shift in the Wright Brothers' attribution to flight in general.

It seemed like better recognition of the contributions by Samuel Langley and Glenn Curtiss' to flight technology were along with acknowledgement of the WB's own efforts to boost their legacy might have checked a decision to keep pouring on the WB-were-the-ones narrative.

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

#68

Post by onepointsixC »

dcsommer wrote: post #65
synapsomorphy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I contributed to the helicopter design for it so I'm biased but I think it'll happen eventually even if the funding isn't approved this administration/year/decade. The already-stashed samples will be up there basically forever, and we'll probably want samples from a few different areas anyways, so it makes sense to go grab them.

Mars has weather, unlike the moon. Will the samples really still be there a decade or two from now?

The samples are meant to survive the vacuum of space but can't handle some weather? That seems unlikely.

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

#69

Post by wharvle »

dcsommer wrote: post #65
synapsomorphy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I contributed to the helicopter design for it so I'm biased but I think it'll happen eventually even if the funding isn't approved this administration/year/decade. The already-stashed samples will be up there basically forever, and we'll probably want samples from a few different areas anyways, so it makes sense to go grab them.

Mars has weather, unlike the moon. Will the samples really still be there a decade or two from now?

Mars' famous dust storms aren't so good at causing damage, because the air's really, really thin, so they can't pick up heavy particles even with high wind speeds. A serious problem if you need to keep grit out of fine machinery or electronics, not so much if you're worried about erosion (I mean, yeah, eventually it'd be a problem, but it's slow-motion compared to the erosion of something exposed to sand storms on Earth)

I guess it could eventually get buried, but I'd expect that to also be a slow process on most parts of the planet, for similar reasons. The only forces seriously driving weathering on the planet are radiation and wind—the radiation's pretty bad but not a problem for metal + some rocks that were already on the surface, at least over a span of a couple decades, and the wind just can't deliver much force because the atmosphere's so very thin (that's also why it's fairly difficult to fly on Mars).

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