Estimated receipt of flight data is/was 6:15 EDT (10:15 UTC), which is what this livestream is for. The flight itself was scheduled to take place three hours prior at 3:30 EDT. As of this posting (roughly 6:30 EDT/10:30 UTC) they "are moments away from receiving" the data.
Seems like they are using a github issue to stream the data to, probably through a bot of some kind, I cannot find the issue where it is going on so I imagine it is on a private instance
Probably using the issue as an aggregation landing page. Bots can post to it, details can be manually added too, in-built support for media, integration with version control and ability to leverage in-built Github workflow. Looks like a smart way to use existing infrastructure.
The video feed had a "university team" feel to it that was sort of unexpected and nice :)
I was surprised to see the tack sharp shadow on the image from the downwards facing navigation camera. My thinking was that the rotors needed to spin way faster on this drone than on a drone on earth, because of how thin the atmosphere is on mars. But the sharpness seems to indicate that the rotor speed is perhaps all that different! Or perhaps the whole thing is just so light that there is not so much mass to lift up?
The two rotor blades are just under 4 feet long, and spin in opposite directions at 2,500rpm. The rotor tips are moving at about 2/3 of the speed of sound on Mars. (For ref, Ingenuity weighed 4 pounds on Earth, so about 1.5 pounds in Martian gravity.)
Good data! Nice how martian gravity makes things lighter. If I'm doing the math correctly I get to to be an exposure time of around 0.1-0.5 ms. Fast!, but not unheard of fast :)
Awesome! Well deserved congratulations all round to the team! Dare mighty things indeed.
Only negative thing I can think of is that I really hope the Perseverance rover has better video onboard just not transmitted yet. Maybe they will release it during the press conference later today. The one they showed was a little clipped. It had spin up. then it sort of cuts to the mid flight and then cuts to the spin down... all the takeoff and touchdown excitement is totally missing from the video they showed. If I didn't know as much as I do about how image telemetry is handled... I'd actually have thought it was broken, thats how abrupt the transition is in the video.
As I expected, I just didn't catch any mention of this during the Live stream, I figured I might have missed some mention of it since since I tuned in right about when they started getting data frames from the DSN.
I figured the team had decided to uplink only the most essential frames for this test flight (spin up, hover, and spin down) and send the low-res preview versions of them back in order to get the data back as fast as possible before a much slower upload of the full mastcam higher resolution video frames.
Whats extra amazing here is this is High Definition (possibly even in 3D) video sent to us from a nuclear powered rover on Mars!
Knowing spacex, they will deck that thing out with 4K video even if it means dropping a few satellites into Martian orbit to act as relays.
My understanding is that video requires power to transcode and compress, and power is a scarce resource.
This is especially true on ingenuity, which is powered by six 18650 batteries. And most of that power is dumped into just keeping it warm enough to function, not into actually flying.
My point is that if you're spending electricity to generate heat, you can divert as much as you want to do calculations with no reduction in the amount of heat generated.
Battery-powered helicopter designs don't really scale on Mars any better than they do here on Earth. At higher vehicle masses, you'd need larger/heavier motors to get the larger/heavier blades turning as quickly as they'd need to (and in much lighter air than we have here).
If I recall correctly, Perserverence was recording images at roughly 7hz and will be sending them back over the coming days. I don't think they are compressed as video, since perseverance has pretty wimpy main computers and isn't running FFmpeg like they had for the descent videos, which came from a separate system.
It may have something to do with the fact that Mars' atmosphere is very, very thin (I think they mentioned it's 1% density of Earth's), so there are much fewer particles hitting the ground and pushing the dust, compared to e.g. a small hobby drone taking off here on Earth.
I'm sure there was some dust thrown up in the air, but probably not enough to be seen against the background.
Cool! I wonder why balloons have not been used much on other planets? Is it the weight of the gas? The USSR had the the Vega 1 and 2 balloons on Venus, but presumably further missions could be pretty useful for studying planetary atmospheres, even for gas giants.
The gas has to be lighter than the atmosphere of the target planet. For planets with very thin atmospheres or planets with mostly-hydrogen atmospheres, that is hard to achieve. That leaves basically Venus and maybe Titan?
Actually, on Mars it's relatively easy to have a gas be lighter than the atmosphere; the atmosphere is mostly CO2, so most common gases, including nitrogen, are lighter than it. The problem is that since the air is very thin, you don't get much lift for a given volume. So for Mars you need a very big balloon, but it can be filled with almost anything.
(Side note: balloons have actually been used on Venus already, on the Vega missions!)
A clarification: technically, filling a balloon with a lighter gas is actually pretty easy: the pressure inside the balloon is almost the same as that outside (if the balloon is made of a non-stretchy material like mylar that doesn't compress the air), so all you need to have the inside be lighter is to use a less dense gas. Mars atmosphere is mostly CO2, so even nitrogen could work as a lifting gas.
The problem of course is that while it's easy to use a gas that's less dense than Mars' atmosphere, it can't be very much less dense because you're starting from a very low density. So, you'd need a huge volume in order to lift anything substantial.
edit: looks like a sibling comment said the same thing first..
I don't think it's viable for Mars; the atmosphere there is only 1% of what the Earth's is, so (amateur armchair maths) to carry the same payload they'd need a balloon 100x as large, plus something to fill it with lighter than the surrounding atmosphere.
Keep in mind that the lifting power of a balloon scales with volume, not diameter - so something with 100x the volume is only about 4.6 times as big as the equivalent balloon on Earth.
It made me so sad seeing them cheering and clapping, but not getting up and hugging each other :( So much happiness without the ability to vent it. Such a historical moment.
Funny. When I watched that sequence, I was thinking the opposite. That the length of the clapping and cheering would be "too much" for me. I imagined myself being in that room. I probably would have beed very happy, smiling and showing a "thumbs up" sign or something. But I would not clap or cheer. And I certainly would not want to be hugged by some scientist next to me :)
I do feel that cheering and clapping was a bit too much for me. If I was involved in something like this, I would have rather preferred a quiet moment of reflection.
Moreover such complex missions can go either way, I think it is perhaps better to be even-tempered and business like about it.
Today? I'd be running around like an excited child, given half a chance. Probably hugging people I know are comfortable with it. I recognized I really do like that energy, and I only live once.
Not saying people who prefer a more restrained celebration are not valid in their preference! Everyone is a little different, and that is a good thing. At my workplace we like to have multiple ways to celebrate a milestone, because it's important that everyone can participate if they want. For example, we might have a team lunch/party (pre covid) for folks who like that, but also, say, personalized notes sent out, or office posters made of the achievement with participants' signatures on it (optional), and companywide announcements (again, representation optional).
For the record the only movie that routinely tears me up is Apollo 13. Specifically, when they land, and the people in Mission Control are shown. Some of those people have a lifelong bond because of that event, I'm sure. That's important to me.
It's something that became pretty clear to me over the past year - if you don't get excited by this kind of physical contact you're probably a little different from others.
That's OK. I not only don't celebrate that way, it'd make me uncomfortable even for a peer I like to hug me out of excitement. It's not what I want but it's what other people want and it seems to be the norm.
You may end up learning that this may hold you back professionally at some point unless you can stay in a role that doesn't value social signaling, as these behaviors are basically expected, and not performing them will get you excluded, unless you find a way to surround yourself with people who have shared views on this sort of thing, which is really hard to find out because it's implied.
At least that's what I've been thinking this past year of isolation where I have been very happy to not feel obliged to do the social things everyone else so desperately wants to go out and do together.
I'm on the lookout for backcountry camping trips I can do once things are "back to normal" so I can continue my isolation while everyone is at restaurants and parties.
I don't think it's just cultural or anything for most people. Not just communication. I am usually not overly social at all, but I am now starting to crave other people's body warmth on a physical level. Feels like a headache... I can't enjoy anything anymore, because of it. The craving is there all the time, there is no substitute for the closeness I have not. I fantasize about pressing my body through an overcrowded club, collecting other people's sweat on me, friends screaming into my ears spitting all over my face. Sweat, sebum, saliva, warmth, smell, microbes, laughter, eye contact. It's not a sexual desire, it's something different completely drained, thirsty, essential for survival. I think back then, if my group abandoned me, I would just die of loneliness on the forest's mossy floor, no matter the circumstances.
I am gonna be really irresponsible, once I got my vaccine shot.
To be clear - I get it - I have had almost a hint of that sensation but I can see it clearly with all the people I work with - socialization will snap back hard and fast and people will go wild, good for them!
There's no chance of me hugging the people I work with. None. Ever. I would only go for drinks with a few of them, but not often. Places vary, and in previous places I've had good drinking buddies, but hugging work people has never happened and never will. I'd hug the helicopter.
I agree, the one person who was excited looked like she stifled herself because the energy in the room was so low. Considering what they just achieved, and how much work they put into the project... I mean, we celebrate more when we have a successful sprint.
She did mention it, but they were probably told not to get too close for their COVID protocol. And watching her speech, she didn't seem stifled at all, she is so enthusiastic.
"We don't know from history what Wilbur and Orville did after their first successful flight, but I imagine the two brothers hugged each other. Well, you know I'm hugging you virtually. And, you guys who haven't been with me for 4, 5, 6 years...if it weren't for COVID-19 you guys don't have a chance of me (I think she was saying they wouldn't be able to stop her from hugging them) but I cannot give you a hug, so this is all I can do. I'm giving you the hugs."
Actually, that's pretty unlikely. It was a very different time. A display like that would have been considered unseemly. Also, neither Wilbur nor Orville were known for being particularly emotional or affectionate. Neither brother ever married.
All these brilliant minds working for so long and accomplishing so much... Just for a clap and cheer, yet tommorow they have to do it all again in the rat race.
Yet cryptokings are basking in glory for a lifetime.
They didn't do it "for a clap and a cheer." They did it because they were inspired to add to humanity's millenia-long advance of scientific progress.
And I'd argue that cryptokings may be basking in money for a lifetime -- if they cash out at a good time and diversify their holdings. But the only people glorifying them are cryptoking-wannabes.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. I've worked on a small dedicated hardware/software team with a multi-year focus overcoming challenging technical obstacles. We certainly weren't flying a helicopter on a remote planet, but the closeness and shared vision were similar. They know what they did and they know that they did it together. While hugging and other demonstrative behaviors are wonderful and should be cherished, they are trivial compared to the internal feelings of accomplishment and gratitude to have been a part of such of an effort with such a talented team. Those feelings and their shared bonds will stay with them forever.
Yes. They said that the Mars window is around 40 something days, and their schedule is around ~5, increasing in difficulty, flights. I suspect after that it will be tucked under the rover. But in meanwhile will be more videos so we have something to look for to in near future. History in the making nevertheless.
Thermally, the helicopter cannot keep itself warm through winter due to decreasing solar power generation. Over the next few months, as the solar generation goes down leading into winter, the energy available for flight (rather than survival) will decrease and go negative at some point.
From https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopte... , the International Civil Aviation organization gave Ingenuity the the designator the aircraft type designator IGY, the call sign INGENUITY, and designated the Wright Brothers Field in Jezero Crater on mars as JZRO.
Hopefully that last one sticks when commercial service begins.
The first letters (at least one, often but not always two) of any ICAO airport code represent the country it's in, and by convenient coincidence, the only three unused letters are I, J and X. I personally would probably have plumped for X as in extraterrestrial, but Xxxx codes are already frequently used for unofficial codes like train stations, so maybe someday Mars will indeed be J or JZ.
The universe is 13.8 billion years old. It took about 7.3 billion years for the Earth to be formed. Then it took roughly 4.48 billion years for the first Hominins to wander on the planet. They evolved for almost 5.998 million years. Then they had small civilizations in the past 0.002 million years. They started flying in the past 0.0001 million years. 0.00005 million years later they landed on the moon. Almost 0.00005 million years after that, the flew a machine over another planet.
The world is not as simple as you make it to be. SpaceX was founded by a guy who squeezed not one but many bucks out of the world. The same company just closed a funding round worth $1.2 billion from many investors who I'm sure are master at squeezing a buck or two. Yet they dream big and inspire a lot of young people to tackle hard problems. Turns out a squeezed buck today can go a long way to confront looming problems.
Ouch. Right in the feels. Americana nostalgia, landscape of broken dreams song plays in background, fluro lights flicker on and off in the abandoned mall, an empty parking lot, Twinkies wrapper tumbling in the wind, somewhere static from the last analog TV purrs then switches off forever... Ask not for whom the generational bell tolls...
Second that about looked older... Maybe it was the super8 video quality
From the series, explanations of life in 2020-2024
Kind of sad, but valid point. Future historians seeing people wearing masks might think those kids were in the situation room for some biological attack apocalypse
Yesss... But they probably are only counting aerodynamic flight.
I wish there was more about what it did after it dropped its load. Did it just fly until fuel ran out? Or fly for a minute and shut off? I think they did say it crashed, which was probably unnecessary, considering how far away it got. It probably could have set down neatly 100 ft away.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 76.6 ms ] threadhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/science/nasa-mars-helicop...
It's almost like NASA doesn't realize many people watch these videos.
I like watching behind the sceen stuff, but I also want NASA to come off in the best light.
The video had a production value of a subpar PBS late night video.
NASA has a duty to promote the agency too. There's a PR value to everything, especially when using public money.
(I want to give NASA more funds some days. Other days, I would rather give it to Musk. I'm not sure anymore who will use the money better.)
You can make the same whataboutist argument for why we shouldn't even be on Mars.
Here it says "Enterprise".
The video feed had a "university team" feel to it that was sort of unexpected and nice :)
I was surprised to see the tack sharp shadow on the image from the downwards facing navigation camera. My thinking was that the rotors needed to spin way faster on this drone than on a drone on earth, because of how thin the atmosphere is on mars. But the sharpness seems to indicate that the rotor speed is perhaps all that different! Or perhaps the whole thing is just so light that there is not so much mass to lift up?
I wonderful aircraft if it is a net gain or loss — Mars vs. Earth.
Only negative thing I can think of is that I really hope the Perseverance rover has better video onboard just not transmitted yet. Maybe they will release it during the press conference later today. The one they showed was a little clipped. It had spin up. then it sort of cuts to the mid flight and then cuts to the spin down... all the takeoff and touchdown excitement is totally missing from the video they showed. If I didn't know as much as I do about how image telemetry is handled... I'd actually have thought it was broken, thats how abrupt the transition is in the video.
I hope the landing was smooth and we can look forward to lots of aerial photos from Ingenuity.
I figured the team had decided to uplink only the most essential frames for this test flight (spin up, hover, and spin down) and send the low-res preview versions of them back in order to get the data back as fast as possible before a much slower upload of the full mastcam higher resolution video frames.
Whats extra amazing here is this is High Definition (possibly even in 3D) video sent to us from a nuclear powered rover on Mars!
Video (of the video from Perseverance): https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1384099167832735748 (Better version from the livestream in child comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26861334)
My understanding is that video requires power to transcode and compress, and power is a scarce resource.
This is especially true on ingenuity, which is powered by six 18650 batteries. And most of that power is dumped into just keeping it warm enough to function, not into actually flying.
https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publications/files/Balaram_A...
I am not expecting much from Ingenuity but I would be very disappointed if we didn’t see any video from Perseverance.
I know doing video requires a lot of power, but I really feel it is justified for something like this. It would become a historic video.
I'm sure there was some dust thrown up in the air, but probably not enough to be seen against the background.
(Side note: balloons have actually been used on Venus already, on the Vega missions!)
The problem of course is that while it's easy to use a gas that's less dense than Mars' atmosphere, it can't be very much less dense because you're starting from a very low density. So, you'd need a huge volume in order to lift anything substantial.
edit: looks like a sibling comment said the same thing first..
How do other engineers here on HN feel about it?
Moreover such complex missions can go either way, I think it is perhaps better to be even-tempered and business like about it.
Today? I'd be running around like an excited child, given half a chance. Probably hugging people I know are comfortable with it. I recognized I really do like that energy, and I only live once.
Not saying people who prefer a more restrained celebration are not valid in their preference! Everyone is a little different, and that is a good thing. At my workplace we like to have multiple ways to celebrate a milestone, because it's important that everyone can participate if they want. For example, we might have a team lunch/party (pre covid) for folks who like that, but also, say, personalized notes sent out, or office posters made of the achievement with participants' signatures on it (optional), and companywide announcements (again, representation optional).
For the record the only movie that routinely tears me up is Apollo 13. Specifically, when they land, and the people in Mission Control are shown. Some of those people have a lifelong bond because of that event, I'm sure. That's important to me.
That's OK. I not only don't celebrate that way, it'd make me uncomfortable even for a peer I like to hug me out of excitement. It's not what I want but it's what other people want and it seems to be the norm.
You may end up learning that this may hold you back professionally at some point unless you can stay in a role that doesn't value social signaling, as these behaviors are basically expected, and not performing them will get you excluded, unless you find a way to surround yourself with people who have shared views on this sort of thing, which is really hard to find out because it's implied.
At least that's what I've been thinking this past year of isolation where I have been very happy to not feel obliged to do the social things everyone else so desperately wants to go out and do together.
I'm on the lookout for backcountry camping trips I can do once things are "back to normal" so I can continue my isolation while everyone is at restaurants and parties.
I am gonna be really irresponsible, once I got my vaccine shot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlmDh4LlaKo
"We don't know from history what Wilbur and Orville did after their first successful flight, but I imagine the two brothers hugged each other. Well, you know I'm hugging you virtually. And, you guys who haven't been with me for 4, 5, 6 years...if it weren't for COVID-19 you guys don't have a chance of me (I think she was saying they wouldn't be able to stop her from hugging them) but I cannot give you a hug, so this is all I can do. I'm giving you the hugs."
Actually, that's pretty unlikely. It was a very different time. A display like that would have been considered unseemly. Also, neither Wilbur nor Orville were known for being particularly emotional or affectionate. Neither brother ever married.
All these brilliant minds working for so long and accomplishing so much... Just for a clap and cheer, yet tommorow they have to do it all again in the rat race. Yet cryptokings are basking in glory for a lifetime.
And I'd argue that cryptokings may be basking in money for a lifetime -- if they cash out at a good time and diversify their holdings. But the only people glorifying them are cryptoking-wannabes.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
https://xkcd.com/2419/
The title text hit me a little harder than I was expecting:
> I've never been that big of a hug person, but it turns out I'm not quite this small of a hug person either.
The graph has a rough average of about 20 distinct people per year. Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but that seems quite high.
There's no mechanism to reattach ingenuity to the rover.
Indeed.
And how much longer will they have to stay on it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM
Hopefully that last one sticks when commercial service begins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mars-helicopter-in...
These either age discrimination or people on that team use really good moisturizers.
I kid.
Kudos to the team for launching a flying rover on Mars!
Let that sink in.
7.3+4.48+5.998 > 13.8
But instead of trying to prevent disaster, most of the world's ingenuity is squandered on trying to squeeze another buck out of the world.
Something transformational for me seeing this group of super young people achieve so much. Inspiring and hopeful and more :)
Second that about looked older... Maybe it was the super8 video quality
Kind of sad, but valid point. Future historians seeing people wearing masks might think those kids were in the situation room for some biological attack apocalypse
I wish there was more about what it did after it dropped its load. Did it just fly until fuel ran out? Or fly for a minute and shut off? I think they did say it crashed, which was probably unnecessary, considering how far away it got. It probably could have set down neatly 100 ft away.