First Flight of Mars Helicopter Ingenuity

Source: NASA (Youtube)

The first flight in the athmosphere of another planet!

Congratulations, NASA!

More sources

a reply to: ManFromEurope

Very cool. I'm hoping some better footage comes out. The one they released is pretty choppy.

Looks like....

Somewhere in Egypt to me...


Riouz

Horrible video footage...
plus the NASA employee's, they all looked like they were about to passout from the double masks lol.

a reply to: ManFromEurope

It brings a tear of joy to my patriotic eye to know that the United States of America has a drone on Mars, hopefully it's armed with Hellfire missiles.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

"Wacko LARPer from the future." true dat.

a reply to: Riouz5

It's most likely Canadian Arctic territory Devon Island

a reply to: CraftyArrow

The better footage takes a while to make it back to us. It's got to go from the rover at a blistering 2kbps to 256kpbs to the reconnaissance orbiter or the Odyssey orbiter. Each orbiter gets about 8 minutes of comms each day due to orbit. From the orbiters we get 5mbps during optimal conditions with Mars at the closest distance it can be, the low end hits 500kbps at the furthest distance. Factor in the time delay of those transmissions as well, and you get what you see here. Over the next couple of months we'll most likely get better footage, it's just going to take some time.

Hopefully the guy from Microsoft who developed the file transfer timer isn't responsible...then it could be 10 seconds of 10,000 years.

Your tax dollars at work.

originally posted by: olaru12
Your tax dollars at work.

Yea, less than 1 percent of the budget. Imagine what we could do with 3 percent.

The Wright Bros couldn't have foreseen it but no doubt imagined the possibility that one day, maybe... That day was today. Awesome Job NASA. To boldly fly where no machine has ever flown.

originally posted by: Exitt
a reply to: Riouz5

It's most likely Canadian Arctic territory Devon Island

I stand corrected. Devon Island its is then

Ty for link

Riouz

originally posted by: FauxMulder
Yea, less than 1 percent of the budget. Imagine what we could do with 3 percent.

We could have put a Blackhawk there.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

With freedom missiles no doubt.

a reply to: FauxMulder

well now that we know a Helicopter can work there...they can be used to move supplies from place to place.

a reply to: olaru12

I just don't get replies like this. Should that money have gone elsewhere? Should we not seek to explore our neighboring planets? Should we not invest in scientific technologies that may one day help the everyday person in some fashion? I wish it was 10% of the budget or more, if we had kept that up from day 1 at NASA we might actually have done this years ago.

I am glad that private enterprise has stepped in to fill some of the gaps, maybe it will drive some healthy competition and get us there faster.

originally posted by: yuppa
a reply to: FauxMulder

well now that we know a Helicopter can work there...they can be used to move supplies from place to place.

I think reconnaissance of different areas to explore is the best use for now. They would have to scale it up massively for it to carry anything. Hopefully by the time humans get there we have bigger and better ones.

I don't think this thing can fly very far or long...based on the battery's ability to give the extra power needed to fly in Mars' atmosphere.

a reply to: IAMTAT

You are correct.
It takes a very high rpm to fly on Mars.

a reply to: Bluntone22

But is it even on Mars...

Proof other than Never A Straight Answer lies....

Riouz