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Mars helicopter flight test

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magz
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19 Apr 2021, 3:55 am

It's today!
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04 ... st-flight/
I'm excited to learn how it goes!


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aquafelix
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19 Apr 2021, 4:04 am

Cool! Big space nerd here. I Knew the were going to test the mars-copter, but didn't realise it was today. I suspect it will work as planned, but I guess you never actually know when something is a first attempt.



magz
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19 Apr 2021, 5:53 am

They did it! :D


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aquafelix
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19 Apr 2021, 6:24 am

It worked! I was cool watching it on the live feed. Thanks for reminding me to watch this magz.



magz
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19 Apr 2021, 6:27 am

It's so pleasant to witness a more cheerful chapter of the History happening :)


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Gaffer Gragz
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19 Apr 2021, 6:28 am

lol cool, I was so terrified that the thin atmosphere would produce turbulence cavities.
And the rotation speed of the blades, even small fragments sucked up hitting at shallow angle ieew
have they attached sound yet? omg I need to see this lol



Last edited by Gaffer Gragz on 19 Apr 2021, 6:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

Gaffer Gragz
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19 Apr 2021, 6:29 am

magz wrote:
It's so pleasant to witness a more cheerful chapter of the History happening :)


I agree



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19 Apr 2021, 8:57 am

Awesome.

The air at the surface of Mars is as thin as that of the Earth at an altitude of 105 thousand feet (20 miles).

But gravity (and thus wieght) is less. But it flew!

Maybe they can do the same for Venus.

Venus is the opposite. It has a denser atmosphere than earth. So maybe they can have robot driven drone zeppilins cruise Venus. Airships that would not get off the ground on earth but would fly at high altitude on Venus. Trouble is that they couldnt use "hot air" balloons on Venus because the air temp at the surface is already 900 degrees.



magz
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19 Apr 2021, 9:11 am

naturalplastic wrote:
Awesome.

The air at the surface of Mars is as thin as that of the Earth at an altitude of 105 thousand feet (20 miles).

But gravity (and thus wieght) is less. But it flew!

Maybe they can do the same for Venus.

Venus is the opposite. It has a denser atmosphere than earth. So maybe they can have robot driven drone zeppilins cruise Venus. Airships that would not get off the ground on earth but would fly at high altitude on Venus. Trouble is that they couldnt use "hot air" balloons on Venus because the air temp at the surface is already 900 degrees.

For higher altitudes on Venus, zeppelins would be perfect. Nitrogen and oxygen are lifting gases in Venusian atmosphere so "hot air" wouldn't be necessary. However, they would be probably unable to ever land.
The challenges of Venus are high surface temperature and atmosphere acidity - quite unlike Mars where atmosphere thinness is the problem and robots need heating.


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kitesandtrainsandcats
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19 Apr 2021, 9:18 am

naturalplastic wrote:
robot driven drone zeppilins

Hmm ...
I dunno if they would fly on Venus, but I'd bet they sure would fly as a story idea!
:idea:


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kitesandtrainsandcats
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19 Apr 2021, 9:20 am

magz wrote:
It's so pleasant to witness a more cheerful chapter of the History happening :)

I'll second that motion. :D
And then I am compelled to say that I really like living in a time of such coolness - even if I'll probably never be flying a helicopter on Mars.
Simply that it has happened, that humanity has done it, is satisfying.


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19 Apr 2021, 12:46 pm

Thanks for this thread. I read when it was "supposed to fly" and didn't. I check the news again for a few days then gave up.
If I hadn't seen this post I would have missed it. I was amused at the remark that "it flew in autonomous mode and NASA didn't find out if it worked until 3 hours later". I am half way thru a book by one of the NASA mission control guys about his experience with the first moon landing and Apollo 13. He started out as a Airforce flyer and then worked for a small airplane manufacturer - he decided to re-up but the Airforce didn't need pilots at that time. He saw an ad in a pilot's magazine and tried out for the job. His early experience was very hands on, then he moved up to more of a manager role (which wasn't as fun to read about) but he was the guy in charge of the mission control team for the actual "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" first landing on the moon. They worked in shifts around the clock to he might have been bumped by one of the other guys at his level of management. Mission control did a LOT more than I originally thought.

Thanks again for the thread!


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