Ingenuity- Mars 2020 Helicopter, Deployment & Operations Options

[Art Martin]

I'm putting this in the Early Drives category because I believe that one of the primary purposes of these first drives is to find a spot for the helicopter.

Is anyone else wondering like I am just what the terrain needs to look like to set the helicopter down? It sure looks to me that the areas we're in right now are largely free of obstacles for flying and landing with no large rocks. Unless you go for some completely sand covered spot I'm not sure you're going to find any areas any more pristine. Does anybody have any info about what type of zone they are exactly looking for? Since the helicopter is not really designed to be used for investigation of terrain but more as just a proof of concept of flight, I would imagine the choice of area would be wide open and flat.

Here's what I've got so far about upcoming events.

1. The helicopter below the rover limits ground clearance so it is vital that the helicopter phase be early in the drives so the rover is not limited in mobility.

2. The main purpose of the helicopter is proof of concept of Mars flight so the emphasis is not using it for exploration/route planning/research photography but merely that we can sustain flight - take off, fly autonomously, and land safely.

3. Once deposited on the surface, it will take a number of days of check outs prior to the first real flight.

Should we create a new topic that is discussion about the helicopter?

[mcaplinger]

Should we create a new topic that is discussion about the helicopter?

You could, but at this point, it would likely have nothing in it but speculation from those who don't know and silent frustration from those who know but can't say.

All of your observations are completely accurate as far as I know.

[nprev]

New topic created.

[mcaplinger]

https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2...L%2317-6243.pdf

After landing, the rover will begin traversing to the closest ROI. On the way to the ROI, using orbital data, the rover could be directed to areas that likely meet the requirements for deploying the helicopter and flying the technology demonstration sorties. These areas would have to have low slopes and sufficient surface texture for accurate tracking by the demonstrator’s navigation filter during flight and few rocks higher than 5 cm to interfere with its landing. The rover would need to image the area being considered at higher resolution than from orbit using stereo rover Navigation camera images to determine if it meets the requirements. If the area for landed helicopter operations is a patch about 10m×10m and outbound sorties lengths are 100 m, then analysis of orbital images and stereo digital elevation models indicates that the rover would need to traverse less than 200 m in over 90% of the landing ellipses to find suitable areas for deploying and flying the helicopter.

[mcaplinger]

Some interesting info in https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2...L%2318-3381.pdf -- stuff in JPL TRS is circa 2018 so might be out of date though.

[Art Martin]

Some interesting info in https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2...L%2318-3381.pdf -- stuff in JPL TRS is circa 2018 so might be out of date though.

Fascinating stuff. From what I read there could be (after all primary mission objectives are met) a flight to land at a new parking place up to 500m away. Like you say though these projections could be outdated.

[Pando]

Some interesting info in https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2...L%2318-3381.pdf -- stuff in JPL TRS is circa 2018 so might be out of date though.

Great info there. One thing that caught my eye was the future use of a helicopter as "Fetcher":

• Fetchers go carry something from one place to another"
• Like collected rock samples to a single pile for Mars Sample Return

[Art Martin]

According to a post on Twitter the rover has moved to an area where drop off may occur. I was looking at the images and GIF's of them testing the range of motion of the arm and I'll bet that it will be used to take photos of the underbelly as the pan is dropped off and the helicopter unfolded and deployed. Sherlock should get it's first real workout.

[Explorer1]

Helicopter lecture starting now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoLYqFB6kVY

[Art Martin]

Well my suspicions were confirmed as we got the first Watson pictures of the underbelly of the rover today. With the timing of that press conference about the helicopter my guess is the dropping of the pan is very likely happening very soon.

Edit: This got me to learn some debayering techniques so here's the image.

Perserverance Underbelly Watson

[Art Martin]

I had no idea about the cover for the sample extraction system so I was obviously premature with thinking the cover for Ingenuity would be the next thing removed. Thrilled with the underbelly panoramas and animations of that drop. My question to anyone more familiar with the operations is will the rover now move away from that dropped cover before ejecting Ingenuity's cover or can they both be dropped in the same place. I would think that they'd be concerned Ingenuity's cover might roll over the other one and limit ground clearance. If so, I imagine the next step after full checkouts and photos of the sample retrieval system would be a short drive to be clear of the first cover drop to set up the next.

[mcaplinger]

My question to anyone more familiar with the operations is will the rover now move away from that dropped cover before ejecting Ingenuity's cover or can they both be dropped in the same place.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/ma...ion/spacecraft/

The debris shield will remain in place until just days before Ingenuity is deployed to the surface... About 60 days after landing, the delivery system will deploy the helicopter...

I'm not sure if the timetable in the press kit still holds, but this suggests that the heli debris shield drop won't happen soon, considering that https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/body/ said

Note that for new Sampling and Caching interior workspace, the belly pan in that front end of the rover is dropped soon after the rover lands.

[Art Martin]

Thanks for the reply.

I remember certainly that discussion about the 60 days before deployment when they really had no clue what their landing area would look like but I also remember in the detailed explanation that the 60 days may be required to find an adequate flat spot free of obstacles to deploy it. We saw Twitter posts just this last week that seemed to indicate they've found that spot. I also remember someone being asked about it in early press conferences and saying that as long as the helicopter is tucked under the rover, the ground clearance was affected limiting where the rover might potentially drive so I would think getting the helicopter demo "over with" is truly in the best interest of the primary science mission. It is probably wishful thinking on my part to believe that 60 days is a fluid number and put out there to dampen expectations and impatience. The Twitter posts and the recent news conference/seminar concentrating on Ingenuity's operations seem to be doing exactly the opposite for the public of getting the excitement and anticipation going. We'll find out soon. In the end nobody should be disappointed with the timetables the rover team follow and I fully trust their judgment.

Until we begin getting regular mission updates, speculation on timings or drive directions is really all we have. With MSL they'll put in their update a basic calendar of upcoming events such as drilling and sampling or drives all subject to change of course due to days with missed communications or aborted actions. So far we're finding out about Perseverance's events after the fact although the raw images are coming down in real time giving wonderful hints. It's been amazing so far.

[Mogster]

A planned 5 flights have been mentioned previously.

Is that a hard limit or as with the rovers will they continue operations until they can’t fly anymore?

[Art Martin]

A planned 5 flights have been mentioned previously.

Is that a hard limit or as with the rovers will they continue operations until they can’t fly anymore?

This has some speculation in it. We have not had any specific answers about your question that I can think of from Ingenuity's team.

Ingenuity cannot communicate directly from Earth, requires commands from the rover to receive it's programming for flights so, if the cold doesn't kill it from batteries not getting fully charged and operating heaters, the only possible scenario I can see where it can continue flying, since the engineers are going to want to move the rover and test its long drive capabilities, would be for those extra flights to be follow flights (or flying to a the rover's planned destination) where the helicopter ends up in the near vicinity of the rover. I cannot imagine, if it's still working perfectly after the initial flights, that they'd simply leave it to die but there could be data constraints as well. Ultimately, once that test is done, all of the emphasis goes to the science operations. Now, if some follow command takes nearly no time preparing it and the data to send it and receive the day's images from it are small data volumes then it might be around for awhile. I would bet any flights beyond the 5 are going to be far more risky in nature if it happens. What you probably wouldn't see though is a flight that could result in Ingenuity failing over the top of the rover.

[Art Martin]

Here's some comments I found on the Ingenuity press kit regarding the 60 days that had been used earlier and more info about the 5 flights. Bolding is by me.

"Once a suitable site to deploy the helicopter is found, the rover’s Mars Helicopter Delivery System will shed the landing cover, rotate the helicopter to a legs-down configuration, and gently drop Ingenuity on the surface in the first few months after landing. Throughout the helicopter’s commissioning and flight test campaign, the rover will assist in communications back and forth from Earth. The rover team also plans to collect some images of Ingenuity."

That seems to indicate that the deployment and test could occur at any time up to 60 days.

"Ingenuity will attempt up to five test flights within a 30-Martian-day (31-Earth-day) demonstration window."

That's fascinating that they believe Ingenuity has the potential to last up to 30 SOLs. If tests go well I'm sure those 5 will get done as early in that window as possible to ensure that any early failures from the cold nights don't limit the number done. If you get them all done in a couple of weeks and the thing is still going strong I can't believe there's not the potential for extending past 5.

[Art Martin]

An update. Just saw an answer to a Twitter post from the "rover" asking when deployment would be and it said there'd be a couple of weeks of system testing first. When in doubt, ask the source....

[Marvin]

The rover team also plans to collect some images of Ingenuity.

Ingenuity has a 13 MP color camera and 0.5 MP black and white navigation camera.

So along with images of the terrain from altitude, I hope we get some images of Perseverance from Ingenuity as well.



https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25530/mars-...ding-press-kit/

[mcaplinger]

So along with images of the terrain from altitude, I hope we get some images of Perseverance from Ingenuity as well.

If you read the press kit, you'll see that for safety reasons the helicopter never gets anywhere close to the rover (130ish meters), so this is not very likely, considering that the max altitude is stated as 5 meters.

[edit: I don't know how wide the FOV of the "horizon facing" color camera is or how it's pointed, so maybe there is some possibility it can catch the rover.]

[nprev]

Per the press kit the expected effective radio range is 1000m, so I wonder if the Ingenuity XM plan is to send her out ahead of the expected rover path as a scout after accomplishing the core tech demo objectives as a follow-on operational utility test. Not sure how much that might slow down Perseverance, though, which has its own minimum mission objectives to meet.

[Explorer1]

Even if relaying to and from the rover has no negative effects on the science mission, in terms of data and planning time, the availability of personnel (and funding!) is another potential bottleneck on further flights.
But I just don't see a perfectly functional independent spacecraft being abandoned just like that (think of the negative PR alone! People grow attached to these things....)

[Marvin]

If you read the press kit, you'll see that for safety reasons the helicopter never gets anywhere close to the rover (130ish meters), so this is not very likely, considering that the max altitude is stated as 5 meters.

[edit: I don't know how wide the FOV of the "horizon facing" color camera is or how it's pointed, so maybe there is some possibility it can catch the rover.]

The safety of the rover must be the primary consideration.

I found the following for the Ingenuity color camera, called RTE:

"Return-to-Earth (RTE) Camera. This is a rolling shutter, high-resolution 4208 by 3120 pixel sensor (Sony IMX214) with a Bayer color filter array mated with an O-film optics module. This camera has a FOV of 47 deg(horizontal) by 47 deg (vertical) with an average IFOV of 0.26 mRad/pixel...pointed approximately 22 deg below the horizon"

https://rotorcraft.arc.nasa.gov/Publication...AA2018_0023.pdf

[fredk]

4208 by 3120 pixel sensor... FOV of 47 deg(horizontal) by 47 deg (vertical)

There seems to be an error in that document, unless the camera has weird optics that compress horizontally to give a bad aspect ratio.

Anyway, those specs give a rover size of something on the order of 100 pixels at 130 metres. So if it's in the FOV, we'll see something.

[Andreas Plesch]

The NASA Radioisotope Power Systems web pages have a very detailed 3d model of the rover.

It looks like a full engineering drawing and if you look at the belly has both Ingenuity stowed away in its protective shell and also the sampling system cover which was just dropped unceremoniously.

This gave me a much better understanding of the current location and orientation of the helicopter.

Looking at the web page in detail, it looks like the 3d model is fbx converted to lzf compressed PLY format, for which there is a parser to extract triangles, normals and colors. This seems to be generated by a JPL protospace system which in turns uses Hololens for AR.

[Marvin]

This gave me a much better understanding of the current location and orientation of the helicopter.

Here's an image of the helicopter attached to the rover at the Kennedy Space Center on April 6, 2020:


NASA/JPL-Caltech

An animated gif showing the testing of the deployment sequence:


NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin

[Explorer1]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-to-host-...icopter-flights

Telecon on March 23rd about the chosen flight location. Looks like the first week of April for flight.

[Art Martin]

This just came up on Twitter. Things seem to pointing to a few days drive to the selected site and dropping the protective cover. Then about a week of deployment activities.

https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/13...8641884160?s=20

[MrNatural]

Ingenuity has a 13 MP color camera and 0.5 MP black and white navigation camera.


https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25530/mars-...ding-press-kit/

I wonder how much of a dust cloud it will kick up and how much that will interfere with its imagery. I guess we will find out, but I am not setting my expectations too high.

[Mogster]

I wonder how much of a dust cloud it will kick up and how much that will interfere with its imagery. I guess we will find out, but I am not setting my expectations too high.

Not Mars but Nevada.

https://youtu.be/ojZeso5tVYk

[mcaplinger]

Debris shield dropped.

[neo56]

From other points of view:

[rlorenz]

I wonder how much of a dust cloud it will kick up and how much that will interfere with its imagery. I guess we will find out, but I am not setting my expectations too high.

Not much - the downwash velocity is not that high compared to the dust lifting windspeed.

This might be behind a paywall for you, but there's an analysis here
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeolia.2020.100653

[alan]

Percy is such a litterbug.

[neo56]

Animation made with WATSON mosaics taken on sols 21 & 30.

[CryptoEngineer]

Animation made with WATSON mosaics taken on sols 21 & 30.

That's cool!

Question: Does anyone know what the components are which move in the undercarriage, on the left and right sides, much closer than the debris cover? They also seem to move a panel crossing the width of the undercarriage between them.

[Phil Stooke]

Those things are parts of the Belly Pan which was dropped earlier. This is an animation made with views before the belly pan was dropped and after the debris shield was dropped, not simply before and after the debris shield was dropped.

Phil

[Explorer1]

T - 1 hour to a preview of the flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK5YXZIIEKU

I'd hazard a guess that they've found a good site for the flights.

[Art Martin]

T - 1 hour to a preview of the flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK5YXZIIEKU

I'd hazard a guess that they've found a good site for the flights.

They have indeed. Very close to the original landing spot. There were maps during the presentation.

https://mars.nasa.gov/system/resources/deta...A24494-1200.jpg

[MrNatural]

They have indeed. Very close to the original landing spot. There were maps during the presentation.

https://mars.nasa.gov/system/resources/deta...A24494-1200.jpg

Is the launch point going to be in one of the scour marks from the descent stage's engines? Might be less dusty....

[MahFL]

Is the launch point going to be in one of the scour marks from the descent stage's engines? Might be less dusty....

Looks like it's just outside the blast zone, maybe some dust was blown.

[Sean]

Airfield & Flight Zone with simulated rover & helicopter for scale.

[pioneer]

I hear Ingenuity's window of operation will last about 30 days. When does the 30 days start? Is it on April 8, the tentative first day of flight?

[mcaplinger]

I hear Ingenuity's window of operation will last about 30 days. When does the 30 days start?

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/ma...g_press_kit.pdf

Once Ingenuity is deployed to the surface, it has 30 sols (31 Earth Days) to complete its activities. The first phase is a commissioning process that is expected to take about a week; then the first flight tests begin.

[pioneer]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/ma...g_press_kit.pdf

Thanks.

[Art Martin]

Lots of new images down of the underbelly and Ingenuity as well as pans of the surrounding area. I'd say we are truly at the final helicopter drop location.

[PaulH51]

GIF - Helicopter 'Launch Lock' unlatched

Rotated / Cropped SHERLOC frames from Sols 35 & 36

[rlorenz]

Great info there. One thing that caught my eye was the future use of a helicopter as "Fetcher":

Unlikely, IMHO. Helicopters do not scale up well.

Beyond the obvious thrust challenge in the thin Martian atmosphere (i.e. classic momentum theory, and the Mach/Reynolds aerodynamic issues common to all aeronautics), there are some other rotorcraft-specific issues that actually are rather challenging for Ingenuity that one only confronts when one gets into the real details of design and test.

First is heat transfer. The thin atmosphere gives almost no cooling. The Ingenuity motors have parts made of beryllium to act as a heatsink, but even then I think overheating is actually the limiting factor on fliight duration, not battery energy.

Second is aeroelasticity. There's a similarity parameter called the Lock Number (that I hadnt heard of until I started working with rotor people on Dragonfly) that is important in assessing the structural damping of blade flexing. Again, the thin atmosphere is the problem, it provides no damping so blade oscillations can build up.

Both of these issues get worse as you scale up. So at the NIAC / Powerpoint / student-final-year-project level, yes you can mock out neat-looking hexacopters and stuff in the 10-20 kg range and they look like they should fly, but once you really start poking into the thermal and mechanical design, I bet even those would not work out.

[Phil Stooke]

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/p...00LUJ01_800.jpg
Ingenuity drops down a bit, getting ready...
Phil

[fredk]

The thin atmosphere gives almost no cooling. The Ingenuity motors have parts made of beryllium to act as a heatsink, but even then I think overheating is actually the limiting factor on fliight duration, not battery energy.

That's interesting, and surprizing. Since the rotors must produce comparable downward thrust on Mars as on Earth (to within an order of magnitude, anyway, considering the lower gravity), via a much greater rotor velocity, I might've guessed that the cooling effect of that air would be comparable too. I guess that means that thrust doesn't scale the same as conductive cooling with air density.

[Mogster]

I remember cooling being a serious issue for the Apollo LRV. Everything was always ridiculously cold and at risk but then as soon as it started to operate it’d get so hot it’d be close to melting...

Interesting issues to overcome when more performance is needed from possibly human carrying vehicles on the Moon or Mars.

[mcaplinger]

I guess that means that thrust doesn't scale the same as conductive cooling with air density.

Can't speak to exactly how they're modeling it, but my own experience with R/C helicopters of similar scale suggests that rotor downwash is a pretty ineffective way of cooling the motors on Earth, and nothing about the Mars helicopter suggests anything different. Take a look at figure 6 in https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2...L%2318-4405.pdf which shows the propulsion motors getting up to something like 85C worst-case. Of course, the range is extremely wide, suggesting that the thermal analysis is very conservative, as they usually are.

[PaulH51]

Another step closer (sol 38)

[Sean]

Almost there...

[Marvin]

It's getting exciting!

Here's what Flights 1 - 3 might look like:



https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2020/pdf/2096.pdf

[neo56]

Animation of Ingenuity deployment from sols 35 to 38.

[PaulH51]

Looking good with all 4 legs deployed on sol 39 (processed & cropped)

[rlorenz]

That's interesting, and surprizing. Since the rotors must produce comparable downward thrust on Mars as on Earth (to within an order of magnitude, anyway, considering the lower gravity), via a much greater rotor velocity, I might've guessed that the cooling effect of that air would be comparable too. I guess that means that thrust doesn't scale the same as conductive cooling with air density.

Thrust goes as rho * V squared. So for a given thrust and disk area, Martian density 50x less means the downwash has to be 7x faster

Power goes as rho * V cubed. So to generate that thrust we have to put 7x more power through the motor

But the heat transport goes as something like rho * V, so we have 7x less heat removal for a given temperature difference.


Now of course the disk loading of Ingenuity is a factor of a few less than typical small terrestrial drones, to make these effects a bit more manageable (and keep the rotor tips subsonic, etc.) but you can see the scaling really points to overheating being an issue for sustained operation at low density

[djellison]

So what you're saying is...Dragonfly has it easy

[Bill Harris]

Thrust goes as rho * V squared. So for a given thrust and disk area, Martian density 50x less means the downwash has to be 7x faster

Power goes as rho * V cubed. So to generate that thrust we have to put 7x more power through the motor

But the heat transport goes as something like rho * V, so we have 7x less heat removal for a given temperature difference.


Now of course the disk loading of Ingenuity is a factor of a few less than typical small terrestrial drones, to make these effects a bit more manageable (and keep the rotor tips subsonic, etc.) but you can see the scaling really points to overheating being an issue for sustained operation at low density

One could assume that "technology will find a way", but this may have hit a wall in this case. R/C helicopters use brushless motors as standard, which have the windings on the stationary periphery of the motor and the rotating core of the motor containing a magnet array. The windings could be cooled via a circulating fluid or by coupling to a large heatsink, but the problem will be cooling that core magnet array. Typically that is force-air cooled, but that wi'll be impossibly difficult with the thin Mars atmosphere.

[htspace]

Wow!

[MarkL]

[quote name='neo56' date='Mar 30 2021, 08:45 PM' post='251285']
Animation of Ingenuity deployment from sols 35 to 38.



Thank you! I would imagine they have taken video of each phase of the deployment which would be show smooth rotation of the various components. Is this just wishful thinking? The cameras can shoot at 10 fps and it would makes sense to have such a video.
Mark

[mcaplinger]

The cameras can shoot at 10 fps and it would makes sense to have such a video.

WATSON can only run at 1/4 the video rate of MCZ (like MAHLI on MSL.)

From "Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) Investigation" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-012-9910-4 -- "For a 720p format video, the maximum rate is ∼1.9 frames per second."

[djellison]

I would imagine they have taken video of each phase of the deployment which would be show smooth rotation of the various components.

There are pyrotechnic devices being fired during these steps. You don't want science cameras pointed at pyro devices when they're going off.

[mcaplinger]

There are pyrotechnic devices being fired during these steps.

Good point. I thought this was all non-pyrotechnic, but based on https://www.compositesworld.com/news/nasa-i...or-first-flight you're correct, there was a pyro involved.

[stevesliva]

One begins to expect Ingenuity to deploy something below itself as well...

[djellison]

pyro involved.

Looking at the CAD file posted to https://rps.nasa.gov/3D-viewer/ it looks like there's definitely some involved in the chopper - shield deploy for sure, and at least some others around the interface to the rover.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[neo56]

Animation updated with sol 39 mosaic:

[fredk]

One begins to expect Ingenuity to deploy something below itself as well...

Maybe it's turtles all the way down...

[Marz]

April 11th is the expected first flight attempt, with data on April 12th:

https://www.space.com/ingenuity-mars-helico...elayed-april-11

[PaulH51]

New Helicopter blog entry link (dated April 02, 2021)
Written by Bob Balaram, Chief Engineer for the Mars Helicopter Project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Within a few days, Ingenuity will be on the surface of Mars. Until now it has been connected to the Perseverance rover, which allowed Ingenuity to charge its battery as well as use a thermostat-controlled heater powered by the rover. This heater keeps the interior at about 45 degrees F through the bitter cold of the Martian night, where temperatures can drop to as low as -130F. That comfortably protects key components such as the battery and some of the sensitive electronics from harm at very cold temperatures.
Before Ingenuity drops the last few inches onto its airfield, Perseverance will charge up the little helicopter's battery to a 100 percent state-of-charge. That's a good thing, because Ingenuity has to run its own heater from its own battery after the drop. No more free power from the rover!
But there is another free source of energy on Mars: the Sun! The Sun's energy is weaker at Mars-a little over half of what we would find here on Earth on a bright, sunny day. But it's enough for Ingenuity's high-tech solar panel to charge the battery. Of course, this means that the rover will drive away from Ingenuity after the drop so that we uncover the solar panel. This will occur as soon as possible after the drop.
Ingenuity can't afford to keep the temperature of its interior at a "balmy" 45F -that takes too much precious energy from the battery. Instead, when it wakes up on the surface after being dropped, it sets its thermostat to about 5F or lower. Then it's off to survive the first night on its own!
The Ingenuity team will be anxiously waiting to hear from the helicopter the next day. Did it make it through the night? Is the solar panel working as expected? The team will check the temperatures and the battery recharge performance over the next couple of days. If it all looks good, then it's onto the next steps: unlocking the rotor blades, and testing out all the motors and sensors.

[Marvin]

Looking at the CAD file posted to https://rps.nasa.gov/3D-viewer/ it looks like there's definitely some involved in the chopper - shield deploy for sure, and at least some others around the interface to the rover.

That's a great 3D viewer. I tried to find out more about this using public domain sources.

If you look at this image from Lockheed Martin Space, I think I see three pyrotechnic valves associated with the helicopter deployment:



From what I can ascertain from open sources they were used to:
1. Release the helicopter shield
2. Release a locking mechanism holding the helicopter to the rover
3. Release the arm to begin rotating the helicopter to the upright position

The final attachment of the helicopter to the rover seems to me to be a non-explosive spring loaded release mechanism activated by a current. That's the cylinder with a "Z" on it. This is the last electrical connection between the rover and helicopter.

These are my best guesses, most of the detailed engineering specs are behind paywalls.

Here is the original source to the Lockheed Martin image:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lockheedmarti...in/photostream/

[Art Martin]

Just saw this on Twitter:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyF2yf7WUAMSUdR...amp;name=medium

[nprev]

Upright & on the regolith.

[Explorer1]

And lapping up the sun's rays too! Terrific accomplishment, those last few cm.....

[Phil Stooke]

The two Hazcam images projected to help locate the new position for the map.
Phil

[MahFL]

Whoot !

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[neo56]

A bit of image processing on this first photo of Ingenuity on its own on the surface of Mars.

[Marvin]

Good drop! I read somewhere there was a contingency to try to use the robotic arm to right it, if it had toppled.

The helicopter was fully charged before the drop, but I think I'm already seeing the "sticky dust™" on the solar panel. I don't know if this will impact the helicopter mission in any way.

[Sean]

Survive The Night

[Explorer1]

Good drop! I read somewhere there was a contingency to try to use the robotic arm to right it, if it had toppled.

It was a question during a press conference (specifically if the arm could be used if there was a problem during landing); the answer was if tipped over, it would be so damaged as to not fly anymore. In any case, the robot arm has no manipulator for that purpose.

[John Moore]

Assuming all goes well for the eventual lift-off, I wonder will the manoeuvre generate a dust cloud around it so as to obscure camera-recording of it by Percy?

Whatever occurs, it's still a great achievement...congrats to the team.

John

[HSchirmer]

Assuming all goes well for the eventual lift-off, I wonder will the manoeuvre generate a dust cloud around it so as to obscure camera-recording of it by Percy?
Whatever occurs, it's still a great achievement...congrats to the team.
John

Agreed!
Does this mean we get Martian air density data that allows future rovers to include a "leaf blower" to blow the dust off, and a bunch of detailed belly spectrometers to identify what minerals they're driving over?

[Art Martin]

There's a number of images that I thought we'd see before the one of the rover fully backed away from Ingenuity. I would have thought they took images of steps such as the disconnect of the helicopter and its drop below the rover. Also possible images of the drive away from it. Perhaps they are still coming down and the importance was dropping it and moving quickly away to start the solar cells charging and ensuring it was all clear. I guess there was no possibility of video of the drop. Just once I'd like to see an object hitting the surface in the reduced gravity. I suppose we'll see that during the flights although it will be a power on landing.

[Art Martin]

Assuming all goes well for the eventual lift-off, I wonder will the manoeuvre generate a dust cloud around it so as to obscure camera-recording of it by Percy?

Whatever occurs, it's still a great achievement...congrats to the team.

John

I believe before the first flight there are a couple of motor tests where the rotors will turn but be below take off speeds. Those may kick up some dust and remove it prior to the actual flight.

[fredk]

Assuming all goes well for the eventual lift-off, I wonder will the manoeuvre generate a dust cloud around it so as to obscure camera-recording of it by Percy?

See this post for an answer to that.

[phase4]

here's an attempt to make an anaglyph of a L-R rear hazcam pair.
view with caution

[Sean]

Sol 44 Navcam Left

[nprev]

Yikes. Do I see dust on the arrays already...?

[Art Martin]

Yikes. Do I see dust on the arrays already...?

Not sure where dust would have come from to have got to the top of Ingenuity. The cover was still on during landing and early roving and the rover didn't go very far after removing it with the solar panel vertical during that time until unfolding and deployment. Sure a drop of a few inches didn't kick up a bunch of dust. I'm certain they drove the rover away slowly. We'd really need a zoomed in shot to confirm that is actually some dust coating and not just different coloration of the panels.

[nprev]

Agreed, of course. Definitely do not want to be right here.

[Art Martin]

An anaglyph of the Nav Cam shots.

Ingenuity on Surface Anaglyph

[eliBonora]

Hazcam panorama

[djellison]

4 NCAM subframes each at 2x2 downsampled. I suspect this is the res we will see most of the time for drive direction Navcam images.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[fredk]

Do I see dust on the arrays already...?

One possibility is that we're seeing some reflected skylight on the solar panels.

I couldn't find whether the navcam sensors include IR cutoff filters. There shouldn't be any real need to include them, since colour accuracy isn't too important for the navcams and sensitivity is a plus. If they don't have IR filters, another idea is that the panels may look quite different in the IR.

Also the Martian soil is fairly dark, so these exposures make the helicopter look unusually bright.

[mcaplinger]

I couldn't find whether the navcam sensors include IR cutoff filters. There shouldn't be any real need to include them...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-020-00765-9

Each [Navcam] lens assembly contains six individual lens elements and a fused silica UV and IR blocking filter mounted between the powered elements and the detector.

[neo56]

A mosaic of 2 Hazcam Left pictures taken on sol 43 and a Navcam Left picture taken on sol 44:

[Marvin]

Not sure where dust would have come from to have got to the top of Ingenuity.

When it was still attached, there was a gap between the solar panel and the bottom of the rover, so dust could have been deposited by the wind. But looking at the latest images, most of the panel seems clear. Probably more than enough to charge the battery.

[Andreas Plesch]

https://bit.ly/PercyMAP has been updated to show the latest drives, Ingenuity at its current position but exercising its rotors 4m up in the air, a closer default view, and with more links from recent way points. Also, the 3d scene code was simplified a bit.

[ChrisC]

https://bit.ly/PercyMAP has been updated to show the latest drives, Ingenuity at its current position but exercising its rotors 4m up in the air, a closer default view, and with more links from recent way points. Also, the 3d scene code was simplified a bit.

Could you add a "help" button that displays a paragraph of text or something that provides a basic explanation of how to use this? It looks truly excellent, if only I could figure out to move around, or do whatever is possible with it.

EDIT: OK, I found this earlier post which is a great start:

It is made using https://www.x3dom.org/ and a little javascript. One can zoom in (wheel or right mouse drag), pan (middle mouse drag) and re-center (double left click). The coordinates of the cross-hair are reported and left clicking adds the current position to a list, and calculates the distance from the last recorded point. For example, it turns out that the wind-carved walrus boulder (harbour seal) is about 12m away from the rover.

I think a lot of people will have trouble with the middle-mouse drag. Most hardware interfaces are lacking that capability (laptop touchpads, trackballs, mice with scroll wheels, etc.). Is there a reason that you didn't use left-click drag?

Scroll-to-zoom sense seems backwards to me, but I'll be happy to be shouted down on that.

Is there a way to tilt the scene? Your mention of "3D" implies yes but ... OH MAN I just clicked "overlook"! Wow! Yes! Add that to the help text!

[Art Martin]

A new update showed up on the rover website that even includes the first image taken by Ingenuity of the ground below it as it was deployed.

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8906/nasas-mars-...ght-on-its-own/

“This is the first time that Ingenuity has been on its own on the surface of Mars,” said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “But we now have confirmation that we have the right insulation, the right heaters, and enough energy in its battery to survive the cold night, which is a big win for the team. We’re excited to continue to prepare Ingenuity for its first flight test.”