The largest, most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world landed on Mars, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, after a 293 million mile (472 million km) journey. Perseverance will search for signs of ancient microbial life, study the planetβs geology and past climate, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith, paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet. Riding along with the rover is the Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which will attempt the first powered flight on another world.
Now that the rover and helicopter are both safely on Mars, what's next? What would you like to know about the landing? The science? The mission's 23 cameras and two microphones aboard? Mission experts are standing by. Ask us anything!
Hallie Abarca, Image and Data Processing Operations Team Lead, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jason Craig, Visualization Producer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Cj Giovingo, EDL Systems Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Nina Lanza, SuperCam Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Adam Nelessen, EDL Cameras Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Mallory Lefland, EDL Systems Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Lindsay Hays, Astrobiology Program and Mars Sample Return Deputy Program Scientist, NASA HQ
George Tahu, Mars 2020 Program Executive, NASA HQ
Joshua Ravich, Ingenuity Helcopter Mechanical Engineering Lead, JPL
PROOF: https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1362900021386104838
Edit 5:45pm ET: That's all the time we have for today. Thank you again for all the great questions!
This is the official r/space megathread for NASA's Ingenuity helicopter's first flight, you're encouraged to direct posts about the mission to this thread, although if it's important breaking news it's fine to post on the main subreddit if others haven't already.
#Details
In February, NASA successfully landed Perseverance in Jezero Crater. Now, its miniprobe called Ingenuity will conduct a series of test flights, aiming to demonstrate that powered flight is possible on Mars. The first flight is set to happen in a few hours.
#FAQs:
Q: When is the first flight?
A: NASA is targeting no earlier than Monday, April 19, for the first flight of its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at approximately 3:30 a.m. EDT. Data from the first flight will return to Earth a few hours following the autonomous flight. There will be a livestream as NASA recieves this data and finds out whether the flight was successful or not, this will begin at 6:15 a.m. EDT (10:15 UTC / 12:15 CEST)
Q: How high will it fly?
A: For its first flight, Ingenuity will simply ascend to about 3m, hover for 30 seconds, swivel then land. If successful, further flights will go higher and last for longer
Q: Will there be pictures?
A: Yes! Not only will Perseverance attempt to record video of the flight from a distance, but Ingenuity carries its own camera and will take its own pictures
βͺ YouTube link to NASA livestream, which will go live at 6:15 am EDT
This image comes from the video of Ingenuity's second flight.
https://preview.redd.it/9sspm5iel3v61.png?width=1394&format=png&auto=webp&s=847a16017b6ecdc7a909d58c798225ac22645da6
The team seems to be using matplotlib.pyplot, is that the case ?
It's mentioned at the end of this IEEE Spectrum article about the Mars landing.
> Anything else you can share with us that engineers might find particularly interesting?
> This the first time weβll be flying Linux on Mars. Weβre actually running on a Linux operating system. The software framework that weβre using is one that we developed at JPL for cubesats and instruments, and we open-sourced it a few years ago. So, you can get the software framework thatβs flying on the Mars helicopter, and use it on your own project. Itβs kind of an open-source victory, because weβre flying an open-source operating system and an open-source flight software framework and flying commercial parts that you can buy off the shelf if you wanted to do this yourself someday. This is a new thing for JPL because they tend to like whatβs very safe and proven, but a lot of people are very excited about it, and weβre really looking forward to doing it.
The F' framework is on GitHub: https://github.com/nasa/fprime
NASA successfully flew its Ingenuity helicopter on Mars today at 07:34 UTC just over a month after landing on the Red Planet with the Perseverance rover. Altimeter data indicate Ingenuity climbed to an altitude of 10 feet (3 meters) and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds. It then descended, touching back down on the surface of Mars after logging a total of 39.1 seconds of flight. This marks the first powered, controlled flight on another planet in human history. Perseverance captured high-resolution footage of the groundbreaking flight in the Jezero Crater.
NASA Resources
- Press Release: NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight
- Video: First Video of NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter in Flight, Includes Takeoff and Landing (High-Res)
- Mars 2020 Mission
- About the Perseverance Rover
- About the Mars helicopter Ingenuity
- Veritasium: Mars Helicopter
Media Coverage
- New York Times: NASA's Mars Helicopter Completes First Flight on Another Planet
- BBC: Nasa successfully flies small helicopter on Mars
- CNN: NASA's Mars helicopter takes its first flight
- NPR: Success! NASA's Ingenuity Makes 1st Powered Flight On Mars
- Space.com: NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity takes off on historic 1st powered flight on another world
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