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Mars: For anyone interested in the Perseverance touch down

Mars Ingenuity helicopter mission extended by Nasa

In the helicopter's new operational phase, it will fly up to a kilometre ahead of the rover, scouting for promising geological features and exploring areas that Perseverance cannot reach.

It will also make digital elevation maps, helping scientists to better understand the terrain.

The hope is this will demonstrate how aerial mobility could help future missions.
 


It's a Scott Manley video, so pretty good stuff. You can see a map that shows where both the rover and the helicopter have been so far, and he does some explaining too.
 
Turns out those humans actually can contribute to exploration.. I.e picking up rocks :D

Seriously though if this succeeds all the way (including leaving samples, picking them up and returning them successfully to Earth) that will be the greatest engineering feat ever accomplished. I'm so hoping to experience that.
 
Turns out those humans actually can contribute to exploration.. I.e picking up rocks.

I know you are kidding here, but seriously, that is the difference between sending a machine to do the job, and sending humans. In the time it has taken the machine to accomplish the relatively simple task of taking a small core sample, a human could have collected a truck load of them. Yes, I know this was just a sample for return at a later date, but the point is clear. Until we can design a robot that has the mobility, flexibility and autonomous decision-making ability of a person, humans will always be able to accomplish more science in any given time period.

Not saying that machines don't have their place... Of course, both would be ideal.
 
I know you are kidding here, but seriously, that is the difference between sending a machine to do the job, and sending humans. In the time it has taken the machine to accomplish the relatively simple task of taking a small core sample, a human could have collected a truck load of them.

We don't even need to land people on Mars. If we put people in orbit around Mars, they could better control robots that could probably explore more of Mars in a few days than all of the previous probes and rovers have explored.
 
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https://www.space.com/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-19th-flight-success

The dust storm couldn't keep NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity grounded forever.

The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity aced a 100-second sortie on Tuesday (Feb. 8), its 19th Red Planet flight overall but its first since Dec. 15.

The flight had originally been targeted for Jan. 5. But on New Year's Day, a big dust storm kicked up near the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater, which Ingenuity and its robotic partner, NASA's Perseverance rover, have been exploring since February 2021.

The Ingenuity team decided to stand down until the dust storm passed, making Ingenuity the first aircraft ever to have a flight delayed by inclement weather on another planet.

The hilighted made me smile.

Great everything is still going so well.
 
Mars Perseverance Rover Finds Organic Matter in Rock

Organic molecules in Wildcat Ridge
A rock named Wildcat Ridge, located in an ancient river delta region of Jezero Crater, was one of the stars of the show. Percy successfully collected two samples from the mudstone rock. Wildcat Ridge is particularly exciting because the organic molecules (called aromatics) found in it are considered a potential biosignature, which NASA describes as a substance or structure that could be evidence of past life but may also have been produced without the presence of life.
Sample drop
Percy currently has 12 rock samples on board, including the Wildcat Ridge pieces and samples from another sedimentary delta rock called Skinner Ridge. It also collected igneous rock samples earlier in the mission that point to the impact of long-ago volcanic action in the crater.

NASA is so happy with the diversity of samples collected that it's looking into dropping some of the filled tubes off on the surface soon in preparation for the future Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign. MSR is an ambitious plan to send a lander to Mars, pick up Percy's samples, rocket them off the surface and bring them back to Earth for close study. The mission is under development. If all goes as planned, those rocks could be here by 2033.
 
Ingenuity is still going. Over 50 flights. Highest altitude 18m.

In view of this, the 2028 lander has been redesigned to include 2 helicopters.

They're going to need a control tower down there.

It was just supposed to fly a few times to demonstrate that flight is possible on Mars, and if successful, a few more times to show it could contribute operationally to Perseverance's missions.

Now it has become an essential part of the rover's operations, although they recently had some trouble after it landed in a area that was in the radio shadow of the rover's location.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/space/ingenuity-helicoper-communications-problem/
 
RIP Ingenuity

Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has ended its mission at the Red Planet after surpassing expectations and making dozens more flights than planned. While the helicopter remains upright and in communication with ground controllers, imagery of its Jan. 18 flight sent to Earth this week indicates one or more of its rotor blades sustained damage during landing and it is no longer capable of flight.
NASA

What an amazing run.
 
NASA

What an amazing run.

Astonishing achievement really.

It was supposed to do 4 or 5 flights as a proof of concept, and ended up doing 72, scouting ahead for things that Percy could investigate.

Of course, if it hadn't been damaged, its time was probably coming to a close soon anyway, because the solar panels were getting covered in dust, and with no way to clean it, the batteries would eventually reach the point where they would not longer charge sufficiently for flight.
 
We don't even need to land people on Mars. If we put people in orbit around Mars, they could better control robots that could probably explore more of Mars in a few days than all of the previous probes and rovers have explored.

People, and air, and food, and safety systems, and radiation shielding, and exercise equipment, and whatever a human might need, to not go insane after a year or two.... All that payload tonnage could give you a lot of robots and no risk at all to human life.

And the robots will keep getting better and better.
 
People, and air, and food, and safety systems, and radiation shielding, and exercise equipment, and whatever a human might need, to not go insane after a year or two.... All that payload tonnage could give you a lot of robots and no risk at all to human life.

And the robots will keep getting better and better.

The communication lag is less than ideal.

Humans in orbit, robots on the gound seems best to me. Provided some sort of rotating habitat simuating gravity is viable.
 
The communication lag is less than ideal.

Humans in orbit, robots on the gound seems best to me. Provided some sort of rotating habitat simuating gravity is viable.

That's a lot of tonnage to send to Mars orbit, just to create an extremely risky and extremly sub-optimal work environment with very low comm lag. By far the cheapest, safest, most optimal work environment for the human component of the mission is right here on earth. How badly do you need to bring down that comm lag? How much risk to human life is it actually worth? How many billions of dollars is it worth, to mitigate that risk to an acceptable level? Would it be a better use of those billions and billions, to just develop and send better robots?
 
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