Helicopter on Mars

CSGambill

CSGambill

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Mar 13, 2013
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#1
So, we landed a rover on Mars yesterday, which has a small helicopter/drone that will fly around, and I assume, take pictures of sexy Martian girls at the pool.

Anyway, IMO one of the better uses for my tax $$. Plus, orbital mechanics is kind of like bad ass ballistics.

www.nasa.gov

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Sends Sneak Peek of Mars Landing - NASA

Less than a day after NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover successfully landed on the surface of Mars, engineers and scientists at the agency’s Jet Propulsion
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
 

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#5
CSGambill said:
So, we landed a rover on Mars yesterday, which has a small helicopter/drone that will fly around, and I assume, take pictures of sexy Martian girls at the pool.

Anyway, IMO one of the better uses for my tax $$. Plus, orbital mechanics is kind of like bad ass ballistics.

www.nasa.gov

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Sends Sneak Peek of Mars Landing - NASA

Less than a day after NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover successfully landed on the surface of Mars, engineers and scientists at the agency’s Jet Propulsion
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
Click to expand...
Just so there's 'No Pink'.

On a more serious note, "Match that, Chicoms, and fuck you anyway."
 
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#11
My dad works for Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is basically the guy who makes sure all the communications equipment for all the data between earth and our (Murica's) space assets in deep space (like this rover, and others) is assembled, tested, disassembled, moved, installed, tested, and implemented correctly in the fancy antenna 📡 dishes.

Good times.
 
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#20
I tend to think that this is somewhat useless in terms of getting anything extra accomplished unless the goal is to fly above what can’t be traversed with the rover - for one minute at a time. It’s really nothing special and Is a typical drone mesh communication network, leap-frogging communications. All of this is currently being done by commercial companies throughout the world, just not at that distance.

But if we manage to get nude pics of aliens I guess it was worth it.
 
#21
lariat said:
I tend to think that this is somewhat useless in terms of getting anything extra accomplished unless the goal is to fly above what can’t be traversed with the rover - for one minute at a time. It’s really nothing special and Is a typical drone mesh communication network, leap-frogging communications. All of this is currently being done by commercial companies throughout the world, just not at that distance.

But if we manage to get nude pics of aliens I guess it was worth it.
Click to expand...

The way I heard it explained is the helo will fly forward, scoping out the terrain and then sending the information back to the rover. Possibly used for more autonomous traveling instead of getting every minute instruction from Earth.
 
#23
lariat said:
I tend to think that this is somewhat useless in terms of getting anything extra accomplished unless the goal is to fly above what can’t be traversed with the rover - for one minute at a time. It’s really nothing special and Is a typical drone mesh communication network, leap-frogging communications. All of this is currently being done by commercial companies throughout the world, just not at that distance.

But if we manage to get nude pics of aliens I guess it was worth it.
Click to expand...

I'm gonna bet that you actually don't have any specific knowledge of this system and are basically making shit up.

Unless you work for NASA or one of its contractors directly on this portion of the program, why should anyone listen to your opinion?
 
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#24
BullGear said:
The way I heard it explained is the helo will fly forward, scoping out the terrain and then sending the information back to the rover. Possibly used for more autonomous traveling instead of getting every minute instruction from Earth.
Click to expand...
That makes sense since there's a time lag (exactly how long I don't know) from transmission to reception between here and there.
 
#26
308pirate said:
I'm gonna bet that you actually don't have any specific knowledge of this system and are basically making shit up.

Unless you work for NASA or one of its contractors directly on this portion of the program, why should anyone listen to your opinion?
Click to expand...
I'm kind of in the unmanned industry. Just a little... Take my opinions and thoughts for what you paid for them.

I could be wrong...its happened before. I still want naked alien pics. Maybe even with shoes. But no pink (green?).
 
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#27
BullGear said:
The way I heard it explained is the helo will fly forward, scoping out the terrain and then sending the information back to the rover. Possibly used for more autonomous traveling instead of getting every minute instruction from Earth.
Click to expand...
That makes sense. The big issue is with the 1.5 minutes of flight time would be the amount of time it takes the batteries to recharge vs the amount of time the rover would take to make up that ground. If the rover can move faster than the recharge time you would have a situation where the rover would be leaving the helo behind and then the helo would spend a certain amount of time catching back up to the rover before it can resume recon. I'm sure that this has been thought through. I never saw on the video where it mentioned the speed of the drone. Someone mentioned that the helo was to gather intel, send it back to the rover, back up to a satellite and then to NASA, which probably means they are gathering info and then directing movement for the rover based on what they see. Lots of ways to do it. Did they mention it docking on the rover during recharge? That would be a good way to go - fly, gather info, return home on the rover, recharge, do it again. That way movement stays matched between the vehicles.
 
#28
I caught a show this week about JPL, the rover and helicopter.
They tested the helo drone in a reduced atmosphere chamber. Rotors turn at 24,000 rpm. They made it all sound like huge advancement which it is.
The drone will probably only be used a few times on Mars and as a scout to plan the rovers movements. The rover had 43 iirc core sample tubes. Everything was beyond meticulously clean.
I think the show was on National Geographic channel.
Interesting to see the development, testing and procedures they adhere too.
 
#29
308pirate said:
That makes sense since there's a time lag (exactly how long I don't know) from transmission to reception between here and there.
Click to expand...
8 minutes "light time" (speed of light) for time of transmission to reception. So, data transmitted from here to there takes 8 minutes, and visa versa. *Shooting a bullet from a moving platform to a moving target with an 8 minute time of flight*.

In order to capture the signal in time with the rotation of the earth and whatnot, there are 3 locations where the signals can be sent ad received from eart: 120 degrees apart for 24 hour coverage. Those locations are the NASA Goldstone facilities located within Ft. Irwin, CA, in Canberra, Australia, and Madrid, Spain. These facilities have been in operation since the beginning (Mercury and Gemini) space missions, because fuck the CCCP.

Radio stations on earth typically push out 50 kilo watt (50kw or 50,000 watt) signals on the FM frequencies. The signals pushed out of the NASA DSN (Deep Space Network) go beyond 50,000kw and sometimes into the 100,000kw. The microwave signals are so powerful you could pass a 1/2" Steel ball bearing through the signal beam and the ball bearing will be vaporized after a quick flash. The cooling systems for these high powered transmitters use liquid helium keep them within operating temperatures to not melt components.

If you wanna go down a rabbit hole, look up a "low-noise amplifier" and see how they "listen" to the sounds coming from the radio frequencies received from outer space. Cooling down a vacuum to near "absolute zero" to interpret molecular movement as the radio transmissions are received. It's a trip.
 
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#30
clcustom1911 said:
8 minutes "light time" for time of transmission to reception.
Click to expand...
That's interesting. Last video I saw of Elon (IIRC), the statement was made that comms took 30 minutes to get back to HQ here if we had a colony - you know, the one-way-trip group that they were looking for. Wonder what the difference is?
 
#32
lariat said:
That's interesting. Last video I saw of Elon (IIRC), the statement was made that comms took 30 minutes to get back to HQ here if we had a colony - you know, the one-way-trip group that they were looking for. Wonder what the difference is?
Click to expand...
Unknown. My dad has been in the deep space communications gig for many moons, so I only know what he's relayed to me from his work.
 
#34
lariat said:
That's interesting. Last video I saw of Elon (IIRC), the statement was made that comms took 30 minutes to get back to HQ here if we had a colony - you know, the one-way-trip group that they were looking for. Wonder what the difference is?
Click to expand...

The difference is Elon Musk's lack of knowledge compared to someone who is an expert in the field.
 
#35
lariat said:
The big issue is with the 1.5 minutes of flight time would be the amount of time it takes the batteries to recharge vs the amount of time the rover would take to make up that ground. If the rover can move faster than the recharge time you would have a situation where the rover would be leaving the helo behind and then the helo would spend a certain amount of time catching back up to the rover before it can resume recon.
Click to expand...

Or maybe the drone recons ahead, the rover catches up to it and explores the immediate area while the drone recharges, then the drone flies away to do it all over again.
 
#37
Nice video. Gives a little more info.
308pirate said:
Or maybe the drone recons ahead, the rover catches up to it and explores the immediate area while the drone recharges, then the drone flies away to do it all over again.
Click to expand...
That's definitely doable. There are a multitude of strategies. I would not be surprised if they end up using quite a few of them. Since its there go ahead and try everything to see what works or doesn't for that environment. I do wonder about dust getting on the solar panels - how much it will increase the recharge time as the mission goes on, or if it does at all.
 
#38
Bigfatcock said:
Elon Musk literally put people in space. I'd say he has a pretty firm grasp on what can be done.
Click to expand...
Elon Musk is an entrepreneur. From a technical and operational POV he didn't put anyone in space. The people he paid for put people in space.

Elon Musk is not a subject matter expert in deep space communication. Evidently @clcustom1911 dad is.

Logical fallacy: appeal to authority
 
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#40
Bigfatcock said:
Elon Musk literally put people in space. I'd say he has a pretty firm grasp on what can be done.
Click to expand...
Agree. Also, the individuals on the team at SpaceX are not imbeciles by any means. The biggest thing they do is ask "how can we" instead of "how do we". Its a huge difference. The conversations I have had with them on their parts has been beyond interesting. One of the original engineers made a statement during a meeting that the reason they succeeded at times when everyone else doubted them was because they didn't know it was impossible or that conventional wisdom was that a task shouldn't be done the way they did it. There is life wisdom in that.
 
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#41
308pirate said:
Elon Musk is an entrepreneur. From a technical and operational POV he didn't put anyone in space. The people he paid for put people in space.

Elon Musk is not a subject matter expert in deep space communication. Evidently @clcustom1911 dad is.

Logical fallacy: appeal to authority
Click to expand...
I acknowledge that ClCustom's dad is an expert.

However, stating that Elon Musk has a firm grasp on what is possible is not a logical fallacy. I get it, you googled that and finally got a chance to use it.

I acknowledge that Elon Musk is an entrepreneur, but to believe that he has no idea what he is talking about, and is only a bank rolling figure head is really closing yourself off. Musk was speaking on IF we had a colony. NOT what we are currently using/doing now.
 
#43
Bigfatcock said:
I acknowledge that ClCustom's dad is an expert.

However, stating that Elon Musk has a firm grasp on what is possible is not a logical fallacy. I get it, you googled that and finally got a chance to use it.

I acknowledge that Elon Musk is an entrepreneur, but to believe that he has no idea what he is talking about, and is only a bank rolling figure head is really closing yourself off. Musk was speaking on IF we had a colony. NOT what we are currently using/doing now.
Click to expand...

WTF.........

Elon Musk: radio transmission to Mars take 30 min
SME: it takes 8 min

Conclusion: Elon Musk doesn't understand the topic as well he or you think. He wasn't even fucking close.

Do you understand now?
 
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#46
308pirate said:
WTF.........

Elon Musk: radio transmission to Mars take 30 min
SME: it takes 8 min

Conclusion: Elon Musk doesn't understand the topic as well he or you think.

Do you understand now?
Click to expand...
Calm down with your vaginal passive aggressiveness. It's quite annoying.

Musk said IF they had a colony. Not currently. He was discussing future capabilities.
 
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