After crashing on Mars, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter could live on as a weather station for 20 years

[Admin]

Ingenuity may never fly above the surface of Mars again, but the downed helicopter is otherwise healthy and could serve as a weather station for decades, JPL says.

After crashing on Mars, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter could live on as a weather station for 20 years : Read more

 

[Stpooch]

I mean , when I saw that ingenuity rotor and blades at first time they showed it to public I knew right away it's gonna be a problem ahead. You just can't ignore strong UV and cosmic ray radiations, heat and coldness., etc . That gizmo seems was not well protected from the get go. It's well known fact that carbon fiber composite and resin are so weak to prolong exposure to UV rays. Even on Earth . Well, next time, and this time make sure to ask advices from public too. Especially , to an Originator who really came up on that stunning idea.

 

[kevincap44]

I mean , when I saw that ingenuity rotor and blades at first time they showed it to public I knew right away it's gonna be a problem ahead. You just can't ignore strong UV and cosmic ray radiations, heat and coldness., etc . That gizmo seems was not well protected from the get go. It's well known fact that carbon fiber composite and resin are so weak to prolong exposure to UV rays. Even on Earth . Well, next time, and this time make sure to ask advices from public too. Especially , to an Originator who really came up on that stunning idea.

was a proof of concept of flight only. meaning if it fly's it worked

 

[24launch]

I mean , when I saw that ingenuity rotor and blades at first time they showed it to public I knew right away it's gonna be a problem ahead. You just can't ignore strong UV and cosmic ray radiations, heat and coldness., etc . That gizmo seems was not well protected from the get go. It's well known fact that carbon fiber composite and resin are so weak to prolong exposure to UV rays. Even on Earth . Well, next time, and this time make sure to ask advices from public too. Especially , to an Originator who really came up on that stunning idea.

You'd be surprised at the genius engineers who work for NASA and especially at JPL. The general "public" would have little additional knowledge and experience to offer them.

Keep in mind this was an almost after-thought technology demonstration constrained by extreme monetary, time and mass budgets. They hoped AT BEST it would last at least 5 flights over the course of a single month on the insanely harsh surface of Mars. Additionally, Mars' atmosphere is nearly non-existent. So the blades are HUGE compared to what would be needed on Earth. Additionally they spun between 2400 and 2900 RPM, which is again 10X the speed that would be needed on Earth. They honestly didn't know if it would be able to fly at all, which is why they didn't sink a ton more money in it - money that wasn't in the mission budget.

Shocking everyone it worked! And it lasted for 72 flights, and after 3 years IT'S STILL operating! Albeit it can no longer fly. If you were to look up "Overwhelmingly successful flying technology demonstration on another planet" in the dictionary you would find "The NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.

If you read the article the only reason the blades were damaged was because they impacted the surface when the on-board navigation system was unable to determine the altitude of the craft due to the bland, steep, relatively featureless sand ripples in that particular region of Jezero Crater.

Unfortunately this article is missing some of the details from the source press release.

In short, the helicopter's on-board navigation sensors were unable to discern enough features in the relatively smooth surface of Mars to determine its position, so when it touched down, it did so moving horizontally. This caused the vehicle to tumble, snapping off all four of the helicopter's blades.

This technology demonstration was wildly successful proving that we (rather, the geniuses at NASA JPL) have the knowledge and skills to build flying machines that can think and navigate autonomously on other worlds! This is insane! They're already drawing up plans for much bigger, future craft for Mars and even more excitedly are moving forward with building a car-size rotorcraft to fly on Saturn's moon Titan due to launch in 2028 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy and arrive at Titan in 2034. SPACE[dot]com recently had an article when NASA selected SpaceX to launch it and there have been previous articles here about the mission.

 

[Jthawort]

Why are we throwing so much junk at Mars? To search for ancient water? Hardly worth polluting the planet with abandoned equipment. We’re not looking for landing sites because we aren’t going there for decades. Spend the money on exploration of the other planets, especially Neptune and Uranus which we know very little about.

 

[Rob77]

Why are we throwing so much junk at Mars? To search for ancient water? Hardly worth polluting the planet with abandoned equipment. We’re not looking for landing sites because we aren’t going there for decades. Spend the money on exploration of the other planets, especially Neptune and Uranus which we know very little about.

I think Mars is a good test ground for interplanetary exploration. Its close enough to send craft / equipment in a relatively short time frame. While I agree there may be risk of contamination from science equipment left over from previous missions, i'm sure the engineers / science teams will do everything they can to mitigate that risk.
If we were to just focus on missions to the outer solar system - the time frame of the missions would span decades. I think the focus on the moons of Jupiter & Saturn are interesting and close enough to achieve results within a decade.