Comments on: Ingenuity unfolded and ready for placement on ground

By: bkivey

bkivey — Sat, 03 Apr 2021 05:09:20 +0000

Picking up what Richard M is putting down: I like ‘Percy’ for the rover. Although, as the name is ‘Perseverance’, it seems a more feminine name (Faith, Hope, Charity, et al). And by Western tradition, anything complicated is considered female.

Occurs to me that naming a vehicle prior to the demonstration is tempting fate, a bit. Recall Shackleton’s ‘Endurance’, which didn’t.

By: Richard M

Richard M — Sat, 03 Apr 2021 02:15:52 +0000

Does Ingenuity have the ability to right itself if it tips onto its side?

From what I’ve read, not, it does not. The designers instead tried to minimize the probability through a wide leg base, low center of gravity and flight control software. I suppose it is theoretically possible that Perseverance, aka Percy could be driven over to use its robotic arm to nudge it right side up, but it is not clear whether mission managers would consider doing so worth the time and risks… It’s just a technology demonstrator, after all. (You can bet JPL has burned a lot of brain cells and electrons on the possibility over the last few years.)

How does Perserverance communicate to Earth. Directly from Perseverance to Earth – to an orbiter and then to Earth?

It has the ability to do so either way via its UHF and two X-Band antennas, but the preference is to do it through one of the orbiters – Percy can transmit far more data that way, because the orbiters have much more powerful transmitters. But obviously JPL and NASA always wanted Percy to have the ability to communicate directly, since the orbiters might all fail (actually, likely *will* fail) before Percy’s mission ends in the late 2030’s.

By: Edward_2

Edward_2 — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 11:04:35 +0000

Does Ingenuity have the ability to right itself if it tips onto its side?

How does Perserverance communicate to Earth. Directly from Perseverance to Earth – to an orbiter and then to Earth?

By: Blair K Ivey

Blair K Ivey — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 05:24:18 +0000

Looking at the image: mental picture of a Jawa Landcruiser releasing a droid.

But ‘This is real, and that’s a movie’.

By: Blair K Ivey

Blair K Ivey — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 05:08:20 +0000

Robert Zimmerman noted: “. . . and carries the same risks.”

Well, at least the crater will be in the right place.

By: Robert Zimmerman

Robert Zimmerman — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 01:01:20 +0000

In reply to Ray Van Dune. We all must recognize that this flight test is exactly comparable to what SpaceX is doing with Starship, and carries the same risks.

By: Ray Van Dune

Ray Van Dune — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 00:54:23 +0000

I hope that if there is no proper video, there will at least be a high-speed data link, so that if something goes wrong aerodynamically they will be able to understand it.

I do have a nagging concern that even with the efforts at simulation in a vacuum chamber on Earth, something could go wrong, especially given the super-high blade speeds needed to generate lift on Mars!

By: Robert Zimmerman

Robert Zimmerman — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 21:17:22 +0000

In reply to Richard M. Richard M: I have been trying to get this question answered for myself. From what I can tell, none of the camera shoot video, but I think it likely that they will set one camera to take many repeated images to create a movie, much as was done during the landing.

By: Richard M

Richard M — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 21:03:18 +0000

Do any of Perseverance’s cameras have the capability to take video, or can they only do still shots only?

By: mkent

mkent — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 18:50:10 +0000

The targeted flight date remains April 8th.

Nope. April 11th.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 18:47:42 +0000

This is exciting. I know they want to go through a lot of checkouts but this is a long time to get a drone up and running. Let’s see some flight. On Mars!