Watching Ingenuity’s flight
NASA has now announced the planned flight time for its Ingenuity helicopter now on the Martian surface, including information for watching the live stream of the attempt.
A livestream confirming Ingenuity’s first flight is targeted to begin around 3:30 a.m. EDT Monday, April 12, on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website, and will livestream on multiple agency social media platforms, including the JPL YouTube and Facebook channels.
I will embed the JPL live stream on Behind the Black when it goes live.
Meanwhile, Perseverance’s weather station is now functioning, providing its first weather reports from Jezero Crater.
[E]ngineers now have atmospheric data from three different locations on the Red Planet – Perseverance, Curiosity, and NASA’s InSight lander, which hosts the Temperature and Wind sensors for InSight (TWINS). The trio will enable a deeper understanding of Martian weather patterns, events, and atmospheric turbulence that could influence planning for future missions. In the near term, MEDA’s information is helping decide the best atmospheric conditions for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flights.
As Ingenuity achieved pre-flight milestones, a MEDA report from the 43rd and 44th Martian days, or sols, of the mission (April 3-4 on Earth) showed a temperature high of minus 7.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 22 degrees Celsius) and low of minus 117.4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 83 degrees Celsius) in Jezero Crater. MEDA also measured wind gusts at around 22 mph (10 meters per second).
Those numbers are about normal for Jezero Crater at 18 degrees north latitude in the spring.
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Your support is even more essential to me because I keep this site free from advertisements and do not participate in corrupt social media companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook. I depend wholly on the direct support of my readers.
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NASA has now announced the planned flight time for its Ingenuity helicopter now on the Martian surface, including information for watching the live stream of the attempt.
A livestream confirming Ingenuity’s first flight is targeted to begin around 3:30 a.m. EDT Monday, April 12, on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website, and will livestream on multiple agency social media platforms, including the JPL YouTube and Facebook channels.
I will embed the JPL live stream on Behind the Black when it goes live.
Meanwhile, Perseverance’s weather station is now functioning, providing its first weather reports from Jezero Crater.
[E]ngineers now have atmospheric data from three different locations on the Red Planet – Perseverance, Curiosity, and NASA’s InSight lander, which hosts the Temperature and Wind sensors for InSight (TWINS). The trio will enable a deeper understanding of Martian weather patterns, events, and atmospheric turbulence that could influence planning for future missions. In the near term, MEDA’s information is helping decide the best atmospheric conditions for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flights.
As Ingenuity achieved pre-flight milestones, a MEDA report from the 43rd and 44th Martian days, or sols, of the mission (April 3-4 on Earth) showed a temperature high of minus 7.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 22 degrees Celsius) and low of minus 117.4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 83 degrees Celsius) in Jezero Crater. MEDA also measured wind gusts at around 22 mph (10 meters per second).
Those numbers are about normal for Jezero Crater at 18 degrees north latitude in the spring.
Please consider donating to Behind the Black, by giving either a one-time contribution or a regular subscription, as outlined in the tip jar below. Your support will allow me to continue covering science and culture as I have for the past twenty years, independent and free from any outside influence.
Your support is even more essential to me because I keep this site free from advertisements and do not participate in corrupt social media companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook. I depend wholly on the direct support of my readers.
You can provide that support to Behind The Black with a contribution via Patreon or PayPal. To use Patreon, go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. For PayPal click one of the following buttons:
If Patreon or Paypal don't work for you, you can support Behind The Black directly by sending your donation by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman, to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
April 12th. Yuri’s Day!
Sixty years ago to the day.
Wonder if Blair K. Ivey’s email to the NASA team moved it from the 11th?
I would be surprised if there were not many emails noting the date.
Would a night flight be better? Bad for optics….but the air is denser-at dawn then?
@Jeff Wright, a night flight would kinda defeat the whole object. It’s not a science mission, it’s a test of technology mission, so as much data as possible is required. It would be kinda hard to film the thing trying to fly at night! That said, you have a point, I’m not sure of the day/night difference in air density on Mars, but given the super-fine margins this thing is working on, it could make sense for the inevitable drone swarms that will roam the Martian landscape to travel at night!
There is also the temperature consideration. The colder the batteries, the less available energy. That’s possibly why the batteries are so large. The mass might be too heavy to lift, despite 1/3 the gravity. Low air pressure limits the capabilities. I am hoping for the best, we will see.
Even helium balloons, which I favor, would have a hard time staying a loft at night due to the cold.
@Max…. Something we agree upon! Although I am having a hard time with the maths given the fraction of gravity and the much much thinner atmosphere than our planet. Dirgables are certainly the way to go, and I think hydrogen would be a viable option. Virtually no oxygen so not flammable, and double the lift of helium.