[HN Gopher] First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]
___________________________________________________________________
First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]
Author : hheikinh
Score : 505 points
Date : 2021-04-19 09:47 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| itissid wrote:
| There is a really good explanation of this machine on Veritasium:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Everyone on that team looks really young.
|
| These either age discrimination or people on that team use really
| good moisturizers.
|
| I kid.
|
| Kudos to the team for launching a flying rover on Mars!
| zoomablemind wrote:
| Congrats to the whole Ingenuity team!
|
| Exciting to see so many young faces and women on the team.
|
| Also, I read up on the project lead MiMi Aung [1] - she's very
| insipring. I remember seeing her interview at the time when the
| rover was about to land, so much anticipation and hope. Now, so
| much excitement is truly uplifting.
|
| Congrats!
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiMi_Aung
| ourmandave wrote:
| I had to look it up because I could only see IGHTY THINGS, but
| the text on the wall is JPL's mantra, "DARE MIGHTY THINGS".
|
| Indeed.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| Or in this case, flighty things.
| qwertox wrote:
| It made me so sad seeing them cheering and clapping, but not
| getting up and hugging each other :( So much happiness without
| the ability to vent it. Such a historical moment.
| jedimastert wrote:
| Sadly relevent xkcd
|
| https://xkcd.com/2419/
|
| The title text hit me a little harder than I was expecting:
|
| > I've never been that big of a hug person, but it turns out
| I'm not quite this small of a hug person either.
| WillDaSilva wrote:
| > I've never been that big of a hug person...
|
| The graph has a rough average of about 20 distinct people per
| year. Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but that seems quite
| high.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| You trying to get men fired?
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| I wouldn't worry about it too much. I've worked on a small
| dedicated hardware/software team with a multi-year focus
| overcoming challenging technical obstacles. We certainly
| weren't flying a helicopter on a remote planet, but the
| closeness and shared vision were similar. They know what they
| did and they know that they did it together. While hugging and
| other demonstrative behaviors are wonderful and should be
| cherished, they are trivial compared to the internal feelings
| of accomplishment and gratitude to have been a part of such of
| an effort with such a talented team. Those feelings and their
| shared bonds will stay with them forever.
| TekMol wrote:
| Funny. When I watched that sequence, I was thinking the
| opposite. That the length of the clapping and cheering would be
| "too much" for me. I imagined myself being in that room. I
| probably would have beed very happy, smiling and showing a
| "thumbs up" sign or something. But I would not clap or cheer.
| And I certainly would not want to be hugged by some scientist
| next to me :)
|
| How do other engineers here on HN feel about it?
| guenthert wrote:
| Extraordinary achievements call for extraordinary
| celebrations. I'd expected champagne bottles.
| progman32 wrote:
| One year ago I'd have agreed.
|
| Today? I'd be running around like an excited child, given
| half a chance. Probably hugging people I know are comfortable
| with it. I recognized I really do like that energy, and I
| only live once.
|
| Not saying people who prefer a more restrained celebration
| are not valid in their preference! Everyone is a little
| different, and that is a good thing. At my workplace we like
| to have multiple ways to celebrate a milestone, because it's
| important that everyone can participate if they want. For
| example, we might have a team lunch/party (pre covid) for
| folks who like that, but also, say, personalized notes sent
| out, or office posters made of the achievement with
| participants' signatures on it (optional), and companywide
| announcements (again, representation optional).
|
| For the record the only movie that routinely tears me up is
| Apollo 13. Specifically, when they land, and the people in
| Mission Control are shown. Some of those people have a
| lifelong bond because of that event, I'm sure. That's
| important to me.
| archsurface wrote:
| There's no chance of me hugging the people I work with. None.
| Ever. I would only go for drinks with a few of them, but not
| often. Places vary, and in previous places I've had good
| drinking buddies, but hugging work people has never happened
| and never will. I'd hug the helicopter.
| publicola1990 wrote:
| I do feel that cheering and clapping was a bit too much for
| me. If I was involved in something like this, I would have
| rather preferred a quiet moment of reflection.
|
| Moreover such complex missions can go either way, I think it
| is perhaps better to be even-tempered and business like about
| it.
| codezero wrote:
| It's something that became pretty clear to me over the past
| year - if you don't get excited by this kind of physical
| contact you're probably a little different from others.
|
| That's OK. I not only don't celebrate that way, it'd make me
| uncomfortable even for a peer I like to hug me out of
| excitement. It's not what I want but it's what other people
| want and it seems to be the norm.
|
| You may end up learning that this may hold you back
| professionally at some point unless you can stay in a role
| that doesn't value social signaling, as these behaviors are
| basically expected, and not performing them will get you
| excluded, unless you find a way to surround yourself with
| people who have shared views on this sort of thing, which is
| really hard to find out because it's implied.
|
| At least that's what I've been thinking this past year of
| isolation where I have been very happy to not feel obliged to
| do the social things everyone else so desperately wants to go
| out and do together.
|
| I'm on the lookout for backcountry camping trips I can do
| once things are "back to normal" so I can continue my
| isolation while everyone is at restaurants and parties.
| lofi_lory wrote:
| I don't think it's just cultural or anything for most
| people. Not just communication. I am usually not overly
| social at all, but I am now starting to crave other
| people's body warmth on a physical level. Feels like a
| headache... I can't enjoy anything anymore, because of it.
| The craving is there all the time, there is no substitute
| for the closeness I have not. I fantasize about pressing my
| body through an overcrowded club, collecting other people's
| sweat on me, friends screaming into my ears spitting all
| over my face. Sweat, sebum, saliva, warmth, smell,
| microbes, laughter, eye contact. It's not a sexual desire,
| it's something different _completely drained_ , thirsty,
| essential for survival. I think back then, if my group
| abandoned me, I would just die of loneliness on the
| forest's mossy floor, no matter the circumstances.
|
| I am gonna be really irresponsible, once I got my vaccine
| shot.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlmDh4LlaKo
| codezero wrote:
| To be clear - I get it - I have had almost a hint of that
| sensation but I can see it clearly with all the people I
| work with - socialization will snap back hard and fast
| and people will go wild, good for them!
| citizenkeen wrote:
| If I just got a helicopter up and running on another planet?
| I'd be hugging everybody.
| qaq wrote:
| hugging is very risky @ work in US
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I agree, the one person who was excited looked like she stifled
| herself because the energy in the room was so low. Considering
| what they just achieved, and how much work they put into the
| project... I mean, we celebrate more when we have a successful
| sprint.
| elpatoisthebest wrote:
| She did mention it, but they were probably told not to get
| too close for their COVID protocol. And watching her speech,
| she didn't seem stifled at all, she is so enthusiastic.
|
| "We don't know from history what Wilbur and Orville did after
| their first successful flight, but I imagine the two brothers
| hugged each other. Well, you know I'm hugging you virtually.
| And, you guys who haven't been with me for 4, 5, 6 years...if
| it weren't for COVID-19 you guys don't have a chance of me (I
| think she was saying they wouldn't be able to stop her from
| hugging them) but I cannot give you a hug, so this is all I
| can do. I'm giving you the hugs."
| lisper wrote:
| > I imagine the two brothers hugged each other
|
| Actually, that's pretty unlikely. It was a very different
| time. A display like that would have been considered
| unseemly. Also, neither Wilbur nor Orville were known for
| being particularly emotional or affectionate. Neither
| brother ever married.
| Viker wrote:
| It made me sad too.
|
| All these brilliant minds working for so long and accomplishing
| so much... Just for a clap and cheer, yet tommorow they have to
| do it all again in the rat race. Yet cryptokings are basking in
| glory for a lifetime.
| objectivetruth wrote:
| They didn't do it "for a clap and a cheer." They did it
| because they were inspired to add to humanity's millenia-long
| advance of scientific progress.
|
| And I'd argue that cryptokings may be basking in _money_ for
| a lifetime -- if they cash out at a good time and diversify
| their holdings. But the only people _glorifying_ them are
| cryptoking-wannabes.
|
| Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
| macinjosh wrote:
| The engineering nerd factor is huge here and this is an amazing
| feat! Congrats to all involved.
|
| I am curious what the importance of this is. What overall goal is
| this research contributing to? Is a mars landing system using
| "helicopter" style powered flight system the ultimate goal?
| tectonic wrote:
| So, so cool! Congrats to everyone involved!
|
| I recently wrote a short piece about Ingenuity's COTS hardware,
| its open source software, and its radiation mitigation
| techniques:
| https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2021-02-24-Issue-105/#ingen...
| ourmandave wrote:
| How long have they all been living on Martian time?
|
| And how much longer will they have to stay on it?
| jjuhl wrote:
| I wonder if there's a public repository of the kernel source
| deployed on the helicopter. I'd love to see if any of the code
| I've contributed just flew on Mars
| lazeebee wrote:
| Check out this Github list of all repos included in the
| helicopter: https://docs.github.com/en/github/setting-up-and-
| managing-yo...
| drummer wrote:
| This was painful to watch. The team can fly a drone on mars but
| apparently are so stupid not to realize there is zero science
| behind them wearing masks. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| While I believe that masks do help reduce the spread of
| viruses, I'll play along that there is no science to back up
| that statement.
|
| Humans do not only do things because they "make sense" /
| "scientifically proven", many times we just do it because its
| low effort and helps make other people feel comfortable.
|
| Its like smiling when you see a stranger, or saying good
| morning to someone. There is no sense to it, you don't plan to
| stop and chat. However, it breeds a comfort (and eventually a
| distant camaraderie) because a greeting means a lot to them.
| Typically a greeting signals (sometimes falsely) a lack of
| malicious intent.
|
| Given they are a team all sitting in the same room, even if one
| of them is more comfortable with masks on (logically or
| illogically), its just a kind thing to do for each other. Much
| like choosing to keep your cellphone off in a theatre, choosing
| not to smoke while in a group on non-smokers (outdoors or
| indoors), choosing to let everyone else exit an elevator before
| you, or choosing to respond to a comment you know is likely
| better left ignored :).
|
| I wish you the best of luck in the future, and hope (masks or
| no masks - whatever strategy to help others you choose to use)
| you use some small amount of your time/effort to help make
| other people's lives a bit more comfortable.
| behnamoh wrote:
| The universe is 13.8 billion years old. It took about 7.3 billion
| years for the Earth to be formed. Then it took roughly 4.48
| billion years for the first Hominins to wander on the planet.
| They evolved for almost 5.998 million years. Then they had small
| civilizations in the past 0.002 million years. They started
| flying in the past 0.0001 million years. 0.00005 million years
| later they landed on the moon. Almost 0.00005 million years after
| that, the flew a machine over another planet.
|
| Let that sink in.
| fnord77 wrote:
| and then .00015 million years after they died out by the
| billions and reverted back to the stone age due to the
| pollution they emitted.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Pretty low faith that all that ingenuity will save us?
| fnord77 wrote:
| it certainly could if that genius was focused on the
| looming problem.
|
| But instead of trying to prevent disaster, most of the
| world's ingenuity is squandered on trying to squeeze
| another buck out of the world.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I get your point, it's magnificent. But something seems off
| with those numbers:
|
| 7.3+4.48+5.998 > 13.8
| behnamoh wrote:
| You're mistaken: 5.998 million years not billion.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Oh man, you're right :+1:
| giantrobot wrote:
| Primates number one! Suck it fish and reptiles!
| rvz wrote:
| This first successful flight on Mars is literally out of this
| world. Well done to all those involved.
| trothamel wrote:
| From https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-
| helicopte... , the International Civil Aviation organization gave
| Ingenuity the the designator the aircraft type designator IGY,
| the call sign INGENUITY, and designated the Wright Brothers Field
| in Jezero Crater on mars as JZRO.
|
| Hopefully that last one sticks when commercial service begins.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| The first letters (at least one, often but not always two) of
| any ICAO airport code represent the country it's in, and by
| convenient coincidence, the only three unused letters are I, J
| and X. I personally would probably have plumped for X as in
| extraterrestrial, but Xxxx codes are already frequently used
| for unofficial codes like train stations, so maybe someday Mars
| will indeed be J or JZ.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code
| timr wrote:
| TIL: according the the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the
| copter is carrying a little piece of fabric from the Wright
| flyer:
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mars-helicopter-in...
| ilkkao wrote:
| Is it too optimistic to hope that flights will keep the solar
| panels clean and Ingenuity could follow the rover some months.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| Yes. They said that the Mars window is around 40 something
| days, and their schedule is around ~5, increasing in
| difficulty, flights. I suspect after that it will be tucked
| under the rover. But in meanwhile will be more videos so we
| have something to look for to in near future. History in the
| making nevertheless.
| jccooper wrote:
| After that it will be abandoned.
| messe wrote:
| > I suspect after that it will be tucked under the rover
|
| There's no mechanism to reattach ingenuity to the rover.
| sephamorr wrote:
| Thermally, the helicopter cannot keep itself warm through
| winter due to decreasing solar power generation. Over the next
| few months, as the solar generation goes down leading into
| winter, the energy available for flight (rather than survival)
| will decrease and go negative at some point.
| ur-whale wrote:
| Funny how there seems to be neither dust on landing or take-off.
| thelean12 wrote:
| Beyond the video issue, I wonder if a bunch was already blown
| up during the test spins before the main flight.
| sevencolors wrote:
| It's probably a video issue, this preview video only has a few
| frames per second i'm guessing. As we see it pop up and then
| it's back on the ground
| pferde wrote:
| It may have something to do with the fact that Mars' atmosphere
| is very, very thin (I think they mentioned it's 1% density of
| Earth's), so there are much fewer particles hitting the ground
| and pushing the dust, compared to e.g. a small hobby drone
| taking off here on Earth.
|
| I'm sure there was some dust thrown up in the air, but probably
| not enough to be seen against the background.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Conversely, plenty of dust was blown around during the
| landing of the rover, but that was mostly from the rocket
| engines' exhausts.
| jordanpg wrote:
| Why does the downlink operator have what appears to be Github
| open? He seems to be carefully monitoring it. Is raw data going
| straight to Github?
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| I'm also curious to understand more about how Git comes into
| play here.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Probably using the issue as an aggregation landing page. Bots
| can post to it, details can be manually added too, in-built
| support for media, integration with version control and ability
| to leverage in-built Github workflow. Looks like a smart way to
| use existing infrastructure.
| potiuper wrote:
| https://github.com/nasa/fprime
| erk__ wrote:
| Seems like they are using a github issue to stream the data to,
| probably through a bot of some kind, I cannot find the issue
| where it is going on so I imagine it is on a private instance
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=1958
|
| Here it says "Enterprise".
| mino wrote:
| Yes, if you look closely at their shell you'll see they are
| calling some `python3` command to get/push/(?) stuff into
| that PR.
| mseepgood wrote:
| So he can file an issue if something goes wrong.
| [deleted]
| xioxox wrote:
| Cool! I wonder why balloons have not been used much on other
| planets? Is it the weight of the gas? The USSR had the the Vega 1
| and 2 balloons on Venus, but presumably further missions could be
| pretty useful for studying planetary atmospheres, even for gas
| giants.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The gas has to be lighter than the atmosphere of the target
| planet. For planets with very thin atmospheres or planets with
| mostly-hydrogen atmospheres, that is hard to achieve. That
| leaves basically Venus and maybe Titan?
| skykooler wrote:
| Actually, on Mars it's relatively easy to have a gas be
| lighter than the atmosphere; the atmosphere is mostly CO2, so
| most common gases, including nitrogen, are lighter than it.
| The problem is that since the air is very thin, you don't get
| much lift for a given volume. So for Mars you need a very big
| balloon, but it can be filled with almost anything.
|
| (Side note: balloons have actually been used on Venus
| already, on the Vega missions!)
| xioxox wrote:
| Of course! Presumably you could use heated gases in the gas
| giants (like hot air balloons). I found this rather old JPL
| page which suggests it could be possible: https://www2.jpl.na
| sa.gov/adv_tech/balloons/outer_jupisat.ht...
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I don't think it's viable for Mars; the atmosphere there is
| only 1% of what the Earth's is, so (amateur armchair maths) to
| carry the same payload they'd need a balloon 100x as large,
| plus something to fill it with lighter than the surrounding
| atmosphere.
| skykooler wrote:
| Keep in mind that the lifting power of a balloon scales with
| volume, not diameter - so something with 100x the volume is
| only about 4.6 times as big as the equivalent balloon on
| Earth.
| [deleted]
| graderjs wrote:
| It's cool. And surprising to me how young the team is. Contrast
| to the other videos I've seen of NASA "mission control" form the
| 60s etc.
|
| Something transformational for me seeing this group of super
| young people achieve so much. Inspiring and hopeful and more :)
| seoaeu wrote:
| At various points they show people joining remotely via video
| chat. Perhaps the people in the control room self selected
| based on covid risk?
| graderjs wrote:
| From the series, explanations of life in 2020-2024
|
| Kind of sad, but valid point. Future historians seeing people
| wearing masks might think those kids were in the situation
| room for some biological attack apocalypse
| pelagicdev wrote:
| The average age of mission control during the Apollo missions
| was around 26...
| throwawayboise wrote:
| People looked older then, IMO. They smoked, had neat
| haircuts, and wore shirts and ties to work.
| standardUser wrote:
| Owned a home, had 3 kids and were looking forward to their
| 10 year high school reunions.
| graderjs wrote:
| Ouch. Right in the feels. Americana nostalgia, landscape
| of broken dreams song plays in background, fluro lights
| flicker on and off in the abandoned mall, an empty
| parking lot, Twinkies wrapper tumbling in the wind,
| somewhere static from the last analog TV purrs then
| switches off forever... Ask not for whom the generational
| bell tolls...
|
| Second that about looked older... Maybe it was the super8
| video quality
| pomian wrote:
| What a treat! A very slow and quiet drama, presented by a tight
| group, a team, of geeks. Appreciated by everyone watching.
| Looking forward to more.
| jpdus wrote:
| Better quality video of the flight now on Youtube:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMnOo2zcjXA
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Wouldn't the sky crane be truthfully described as a "powered,
| controlled flight on another planet"?
| [deleted]
| xtiansimon wrote:
| Woot!
| Torkel wrote:
| Yay! Cool that they made it :)
|
| The video feed had a "university team" feel to it that was sort
| of unexpected and nice :)
|
| I was surprised to see the tack sharp shadow on the image from
| the downwards facing navigation camera. My thinking was that the
| rotors needed to spin way faster on this drone than on a drone on
| earth, because of how thin the atmosphere is on mars. But the
| sharpness seems to indicate that the rotor speed is perhaps all
| that different! Or perhaps the whole thing is just so light that
| there is not so much mass to lift up?
| eddyg wrote:
| The two rotor blades are just under 4 feet long, and spin in
| opposite directions at 2,500rpm. The rotor tips are moving at
| about 2/3 of the speed of sound on Mars. (For ref, Ingenuity
| weighed 4 pounds on Earth, so about 1.5 pounds in Martian
| gravity.)
| Torkel wrote:
| Good data! Nice how martian gravity makes things lighter. If
| I'm doing the math correctly I get to to be an exposure time
| of around 0.1-0.5 ms. Fast!, but not unheard of fast :)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, lighter but an atmosphere so thin it's harder to get
| lift.
|
| I wonderful aircraft if it is a net gain or loss -- Mars
| vs. Earth.
| walrus01 wrote:
| The Black and white bottom facing camera may have a very short
| exposure time and a global (not rolling) shutter.
| ourmandave wrote:
| Well this changes the whole plot to _The Martian_ if he can just
| get Domino 's delivered.
| _joel wrote:
| Might be cold by the time it gets there though
| chronogram wrote:
| There's a Korean food delivery commercial with just that theme:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQGtK41Wj3o
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| Yeah, but the delivery fee is a doozy.
| ourmandave wrote:
| That's one small pepperoni for a man, one giant tip for
| mankind.
| techdragon wrote:
| Awesome! Well deserved congratulations all round to the team!
| Dare mighty things indeed.
|
| Only negative thing I can think of is that I really hope the
| Perseverance rover has better video onboard just not transmitted
| yet. Maybe they will release it during the press conference later
| today. The one they showed was a little clipped. It had spin up.
| then it sort of cuts to the mid flight and then cuts to the spin
| down... all the takeoff and touchdown excitement is totally
| missing from the video they showed. If I didn't know as much as I
| do about how image telemetry is handled... I'd actually have
| thought it was broken, thats how abrupt the transition is in the
| video.
| _rpd wrote:
| Yes, higher res, higher fps is coming, but will take a couple
| of days.
|
| I hope the landing was smooth and we can look forward to lots
| of aerial photos from Ingenuity.
| techdragon wrote:
| As I expected, I just didn't catch any mention of this during
| the Live stream, I figured I might have missed some mention
| of it since since I tuned in right about when they started
| getting data frames from the DSN.
|
| I figured the team had decided to uplink only the most
| essential frames for this test flight (spin up, hover, and
| spin down) and send the low-res preview versions of them back
| in order to get the data back as fast as possible before a
| much slower upload of the full mastcam higher resolution
| video frames.
|
| Whats extra amazing here is this is High Definition (possibly
| even in 3D) video sent to us from a nuclear powered rover on
| Mars!
| rho4 wrote:
| Countdown to when the take off is supposed to happen sorely
| missing.
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| Estimated receipt of flight data is/was 6:15 EDT (10:15 UTC),
| which is what this livestream is for. The flight itself was
| scheduled to take place three hours prior at 3:30 EDT. As of
| this posting (roughly 6:30 EDT/10:30 UTC) they "are moments
| away from receiving" the data.
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| Edit around 6:55 EDT: Data received, confirmation of flight.
| They've got the video! Relevant spot in the stream:
| https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2265
| T-A wrote:
| It's already supposed to have happened, they are waiting for
| the data:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/science/nasa-mars-helicop...
| [deleted]
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| A little video editing would be nice.
|
| It's almost like NASA doesn't realize many people watch these
| videos.
|
| I like watching behind the sceen stuff, but I also want NASA to
| come off in the best light.
|
| The video had a production value of a subpar PBS late night
| video.
|
| NASA has a duty to promote the agency too. There's a PR value
| to everything, especially when using public money.
|
| (I want to give NASA more funds some days. Other days, I would
| rather give it to Musk. I'm not sure anymore who will use the
| money better.)
| BigMajestic wrote:
| Would you rather want these funds to be spent on PR team and
| video editing or on missions?
| waheoo wrote:
| I'd rather NASA had the funds for a little production
| value.
|
| You can make the same whataboutist argument for why we
| shouldn't even be on Mars.
| insert_coin wrote:
| Relax a little, it literally just happened, better things are
| coming. And don't watch the live feed if what you want is a
| Hollywood production.
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| Roughly the start of success from the livestream:
| https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2265
|
| Video (of the video from Perseverance):
| https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1384099167832735748 (Better
| version from the livestream in child comment
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26861334)
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Livestream timestamp of the video from Perseverance:
| https://youtu.be/p1KolyCqICI?t=2447 (slightly better quality)
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I hope that in a little while we get an actual video like we
| got when the whole thing was descending onto the ground.
|
| I am not expecting much from Ingenuity but I would be very
| disappointed if we didn't see any video from Perseverance.
|
| I know doing video requires a lot of power, but I really feel
| it is justified for something like this. It would become a
| historic video.
| jccooper wrote:
| We'll get a full video once they have time to uplink it.
| Unsurprisingly, you can't stream high-quality video from
| Mars.
| HALtheWise wrote:
| If I recall correctly, Perserverence was recording images at
| roughly 7hz and will be sending them back over the coming
| days. I don't think they are compressed as video, since
| perseverance has pretty wimpy main computers and isn't
| running FFmpeg like they had for the descent videos, which
| came from a separate system.
| tkinom wrote:
| Can't wait until the SpaceX's Starship land the next gen Mars
| Helicopter that might be 10-20x bigger in 2-4 years.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Knowing spacex, they will deck that thing out with 4K video
| even if it means dropping a few satellites into Martian orbit
| to act as relays.
|
| My understanding is that video requires power to transcode
| and compress, and power is a scarce resource.
|
| This is especially true on ingenuity, which is powered by six
| 18650 batteries. And most of that power is dumped into just
| keeping it warm enough to function, not into actually flying.
|
| https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_A.
| ..
| alach11 wrote:
| Wouldn't transcoding the video still produce the same
| amount of heat?
| sgt wrote:
| Not that much as it will no doubt be hardware
| accelerated.
| alach11 wrote:
| My point is that if you're spending electricity to
| generate heat, you can divert as much as you want to do
| calculations with no reduction in the amount of heat
| generated.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| Battery-powered helicopter designs don't really scale on Mars
| any better than they do here on Earth. At higher vehicle
| masses, you'd need larger/heavier motors to get the
| larger/heavier blades turning as quickly as they'd need to
| (and in much lighter air than we have here).
| bregma wrote:
| Why are they all in prison?
| insert_coin wrote:
| Freedom means not caring what others think or do. Maybe it is
| you the one trapped in a confrontation prison.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-04-19 23:01 UTC)