C CApr 8, 2021 04:59 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 8, 2021 05:00 PM by C C.)
(Apr 8, 2021 12:19 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: What a desolate looking place. Hard to imagine anything living on the surface. But I suppose to a scientist it’s exciting nonetheless. The scene looks like something out of a Twilight Zone episode. Nothing flying around either or anything that gives the impression of life existing there. Wonder if any Earth microbes have made a trip to the Red planet and survived, and how are they making out.
With any luck, the self-replicating machine organism equivalents of Persey will be busy proliferating all over Mars centuries from now. If not, then the only point of humanity's existence will have fizzled out prematurely (i.e., to replace ourselves with "wildlife" that's expressly suited for space habitation and non-Earthlike worlds -- including dormancy for slow migrations between the stars).
YazataApr 10, 2021 07:11 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 10, 2021 07:35 PM by Yazata.)
Mars Helicopter Ingenuity's first flight is being pushed back to no earlier than April 14. Apparently there was some kind of problem when they tried to spin up its rotors in a prefight test.
JPL says
"During the high-speed spin test, the sequence ended early during the transition from "preflight" to "flight" mode. The helicopter is safe and healthy. The team is diagnosing the issue."
YazataApr 13, 2021 05:31 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 13, 2021 05:42 PM by Yazata.)
Diagnosis of Friday's problem reveals that the Ingenuity helicopter is mechanically fine, but has some bad code in its software. So it requires a software update. They apparently plan to send up a whole now flight control system with the necessary mods, then boot up Ingenuity's system with the new system. The new code has to be written, validated and uplinked to Mars which may take some time. They say that they intend to run it extensively on Earth-based test systems first. JPL say that they will have an estimate on a target flight date sometime next week.
In the meantime, Ingenuity's systems are all stable.
(Apr 13, 2021 05:31 PM)Yazata Wrote: Diagnosis of Friday's problem reveals that the Ingenuity helicopter is mechanically fine, but has some bad code in its software. So it requires a software update. They apparently plan to send up a whole now flight control system with the necessary mods, then boot up Ingenuity's system with the new system. The new code has to be written, validated and uplinked to Mars which may take some time. They say that they intend to run it extensively on Earth-based test systems first. JPL say that they will have an estimate on a target flight date sometime next week.
In the meantime, Ingenuity's systems are all stable.
Ingenuity's first Mars helicopter flight is set for net Monday April 19. It's supposed to fly at 3:30 AM EDT/12:30 AM PDT. A livestream isn't set to start until 6:15 AM EDT. Dunno how "live" that can be, presumably it's when the data starts arriving from Mars. Then there will be some kind of post-flight briefing, all streamed on nasa-tv.
What the dataset looks like coming in. It takes a circuitous route from the helicopter to Perseverance to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to tracking stations on Earth to JPL.
Wright Brothers moment. First aerodynamic powered flight on Mars. The next step is to expand the envelope to horizontal flight to particular points, testing camera downlinks and stuff.
C CApr 19, 2021 04:46 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 19, 2021 04:46 PM by C C.)
Too bad this is just a demo, and we'll have to wait years for an actual investigative mission conducted by a flying device, or whatever real purpose there can be for the latter.
Apr 8, 2021 04:59 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 8, 2021 05:00 PM by C C.)
![[Image: ZR0_0049_0671288882_619ECM_N0031850ZCAM0...01_800.jpg]](https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/pub/ods/surface/sol/00049/ids/edr/browse/zcam/ZR0_0049_0671288882_619ECM_N0031850ZCAM05016_034085J01_800.jpg)
![[Image: ZL0_0049_0671288882_619ECM_N0031850ZCAM0...01_800.jpg]](https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/pub/ods/surface/sol/00049/ids/edr/browse/zcam/ZL0_0049_0671288882_619ECM_N0031850ZCAM05016_110085J01_800.jpg)
![[Image: EzMmmSYUcAAmhk-?format=jpg&name=medium]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzMmmSYUcAAmhk-?format=jpg&name=medium)
![[Image: EzVK0eCUcAMPkxb?format=jpg&name=medium]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzVK0eCUcAMPkxb?format=jpg&name=medium)