Chat > General Discussion
Ingenuity, first flight on Mars
Serious:
--- Quote from: neXus on April 28, 2021, 02:47:29 AM ---
--- Quote from: Serious on April 27, 2021, 11:11:39 AM ---They land in the same area where they took off, three times so far, so they know that it's flat.
I'm wondering if they have underestimated what they can do in the time available, seems they are well ahead of the original estimate to me. Might not manage to go through a Mars winter but it could take it further than 5 flights.
--- End quote ---
True but they going to do more and likely push to crash it but it has basic land boulder avoidance coded.
They always under estimate, never hope and over engineer. You have to with this sort of thing. Plus the more complex something is the more it can break.
They know what the atmosphere is but no one has flown anything in that to this date so it's a first time. I can imagine all the data from this they get they will look to do a full smart drone that can fly around taking pictures/video on it's own next time.
--- End quote ---
The basic flight achievement was done first attempt, but there is at least one more important issue here, the fact that they are using commercially produced normal electronics.
It's actually got a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, the same chip as a Samsung Galaxy S5 (2014). That gives it more CPU capability than any previous NASA probe and probably more than all of them combined. It also opens the option for new probes to carry mobile phone chips that are far more efficient and capable.
neXus:
--- Quote from: Serious on April 28, 2021, 11:27:11 AM ---
--- Quote from: neXus on April 28, 2021, 02:47:29 AM ---
--- Quote from: Serious on April 27, 2021, 11:11:39 AM ---They land in the same area where they took off, three times so far, so they know that it's flat.
I'm wondering if they have underestimated what they can do in the time available, seems they are well ahead of the original estimate to me. Might not manage to go through a Mars winter but it could take it further than 5 flights.
--- End quote ---
True but they going to do more and likely push to crash it but it has basic land boulder avoidance coded.
They always under estimate, never hope and over engineer. You have to with this sort of thing. Plus the more complex something is the more it can break.
They know what the atmosphere is but no one has flown anything in that to this date so it's a first time. I can imagine all the data from this they get they will look to do a full smart drone that can fly around taking pictures/video on it's own next time.
--- End quote ---
The basic flight achievement was done first attempt, but there is at least one more important issue here, the fact that they are using commercially produced normal electronics.
It's actually got a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, the same chip as a Samsung Galaxy S5 (2014). That gives it more CPU capability than any previous NASA probe and probably more than all of them combined. It also opens the option for new probes to carry mobile phone chips that are far more efficient and capable.
--- End quote ---
For the next mission I really think they should engage a company like DJI to work on the next drone, lean on their knowledge and software and help DJI with the data about Mars and get something wizzing around on its own.
Serious:
--- Quote from: neXus on April 29, 2021, 01:32:21 AM ---For the next mission I really think they should engage a company like DJI to work on the next drone, lean on their knowledge and software and help DJI with the data about Mars and get something wizzing around on its own.
--- End quote ---
That would certainly be interesting. They are already working on other drones like Dragonfly, intended to go to Titan.That would be another challenge as there isn't much light and it's also a cold environment. Would also be nice to have a proper data transmission network through the solar system. A ring of sats would enable constant data rather than having to wait.
XEntity:
--- Quote from: neXus on April 29, 2021, 01:32:21 AM ---For the next mission I really think they should engage a company like DJI to work on the next drone, lean on their knowledge and software and help DJI with the data about Mars and get something wizzing around on its own.
--- End quote ---
LOL, they landed the rover on Mars from 302M km away another planet in a ~25km diameter circle, they don't need DJI.
They have far superior knowledge - the rover was autonomously guided by the onboard thrusters to the spot it landed using it's cameras to compare to orbital maps to avoid landing obstacles.
The current drone was only a proof of concept and only designed primarily for a small number of proof of concept flights, however is capable of flying to specifically requested locations, the main limitation I expect is flight time due to battery capacity, you either put the brains in the drone and increase power consumption, offload some processing to the rover for real time autonomy or command from earth.
This is a pretty cool read : https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8933/with-goals-met-nasa-to-push-envelope-with-ingenuity-mars-helicopter/
Clock'd 0Ne:
I did LOL at the DJI thing too actually. This really is an amazing achievement but sooooo easy to downplay because we are so spoilt by technology now. Its like comparing an Anki Vector robot to Boston Dynamics. They had a vacuum chamber about 1m cubed filled with mostly carbon dioxide to simulate the Martian atmosphere, so they couldn't even test fly it properly.
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