Perseverance "Image of the week." Apparently Ginny has been busy flying, not taking photos.
Posted on 02/16/2023 2:33:57 PM PST by Ezekiel
Ingenuity has completed Flight 43 -- its longest flight in nearly a year! 🎉
The #MarsHelicopter traveled 1,280 ft (390 m) across the Martian surface for 145.99 seconds at a max. altitude of 40 ft (12 m).
Flight Log
Flight 43
Sol 708
Date Feb. 16, 2023
Horizontal Distance 390 m ~1,280 ft
Max Altitude 12 m ~39 ft
Max Groundspeed 4 m/sec ~8.9 mph
Duration 146.0 seconds
Route of Flight From Airfield Gamma to Airfield Epsilon
Flights
43
(as of 2/16/23)
Distance Flown
8,829 meters
(~28,968 ft)
Highest Altitude
14 meters
(~46 ft)
Fastest Ground Speed
5.50 m/s
(12.3 mph)
Flight Time
~72.4 minutes
(4,344 seconds)
Also:
Status Updates
February 14, 2023
Perseverance's Four-Legged Companion is Ready
Maybe they should shoot it down.
Perseverance "Image of the week." Apparently Ginny has been busy flying, not taking photos.
Amazing what they’ve accomplished. However, I will state my standard nitpick: where’s the video of all this amazingness? Why aren’t we seeing spectacular “cockpit” views of the Martian landscape scrolling by? I find it truly puzzling that collecting video imagery apparently wasn’t a mission priority.
It actually makes sense because the Mars Helicopter was not expected to go more than 5 flights at best, within 30 Sols, as a proof-of-concept for flying on Mars. 1% of the atmosphere on Earth.
So, not like they were going to weigh it down any more than necessary.
The rover was going to continue on after the demo, and that would have been that because the helicopter communicates through the rover.
However, Ingenuity did so well that it is still able to keep flying and remain close to Perseverance, as the rover continues on its sample-collecting mission.
Of course, who trusts any government agency with anything anymore. At this point the performance really does seem too good to be true, but “usually” is not the same as “always”.
I’ve seen that very thing — the “if something seems too good to be true...” aphorism beating the odds, so...
Go Ginny Go Go Go!
Absolutely right.
Ingenuity is not exactly on many people’s minds. Who even knows of much less pays any attention to Ingenuity?
Ginny doesn’t even rate her own emoji.
😢
I only saw your post after writing post 6, which contains my perspective on the matter.
This little helicopter is a living parable! Ingenuity *is* life on Mars, born from Perseverance of the eve of Easter, spending that first night all alone in the cold.
Would she make it through?
Can Do!
Weird stuff is going on all over the place.
Haha, looks like wax lips.
When I was a kid, my dad bought one of the first TVs with remote control (A made in USA Magnavox). The remoote control had an ultrasonic mechanical pizo element that would send out an audible "ping". When the TV heard that "ping" sound, it would change channels--all three of them! LOL. I don't think ultrasonic remote control will reach as far as Mars …
In general, I've been somewhat down on space programs since the Russians killed Laika the Space dog. That story still makes me sad.
I don’t doubt Ingenuity is up there performing just as well as NASA is reporting. I just wish we had some flight videos of Mars to look at. To me that would have been mindblowingly cool. Given that we stick video cameras on just about everything nowadays it seems natural that you’d put one on Ingenuity.
I’ve speculated before that they must not have been able to squeeze a video collection capability into the weight budget. That doesn’t seem like a satisfying explanation, though, given how tiny video camera systems are nowadays.
Of course there were all kinds of other constraints they were having to design within too. Whatever it was, apparently something else had priority and video didn’t make the cut.
NASA/JPL might have figured it wasn’t worth the bother to set up video capability because of the limited expectations and required data transfer between the ‘copter and the rover.
You’re right though, bummer. The JPL peeps are probably thinking the same. Well now they know better, and from this one’s success they are busy designing the next generation.
Even with wheels.
With all the stupid, rotten stuff happening on Earth, Lil Ginny’s adventures provide welcome and much-needed rays of sunshine. She’s something — somebody to root for who is literally above the fray.
I’m not the type who goes for the culture of “cutsifiying” everything (a cover for dysfunction more often than not), but in the case of the Mars rovers (and now the heli)... they are too cute! They are Martians, after all. They’ve got style.
The first-person action-report tweets from them are adorable even when not rosy, as when Percy was having sample-collection issues.
Levity has its happy home on Mars.
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