Yay - verified that a #Trangia sealing dispenser valve (for their camping fuel bottles) does indeed fit perfectly on an #MSR fuel bottle.
Getting any Swedish Trangia gear here seems almost impossible, but I've coveted one of these dispenser caps for ages. Saved a few bucks and I get to reuse my MSR bottles by just buying a replacement dispenser cap.
#NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT, Monday, April 15, to discuss the agency’s response to a Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board report from September 2023, including next steps for the program.
NASA SpaceFlight #NSF had a very interesting live interview with Travis Brown, PhD, #Ingenuity's current Chief Engineer. Travis said that in spite of an original though/assumption that Ingenuity's rotors had hit the ground during landing of #Flight72, they now tend to believe that it was rather a very hard landing that damaged the rotors, since there is no evidence anywhere on the regolith of a blade hit.
#Ingenuity had a software change recently (after the crash) that allows it to store data it collects (in non volatile memory previously used for flight, I presume), and it can now collect certain data for about 20 years. So whenever the rover is within radio range, maybe when it'll be coming back from the mountains to deliver the samples to the #MSR lander, it may be able to download the collected data, assuming of course that Ingenuity will still be alive to say hello and do the transfer.
"Most firms that have announced business plans to launch rockets to the Moon [...] have been doing so with the intent of selling services or lunar water to NASA or other parties fulfilling government contracts. Put another way, there has been no wealth creation, and ultimately, NASA is the customer."
@Legit_Spaghetti
They may treat the Moon the way they want, in their #SciFi fantasies. It'll take some time until some of those companies manage to soft-land crafts in an upright position and do more than take a few pictures, and generations until they be able to transport heavy equipment to do any kind of profitable operation, not to mention building the rest of the infrastructure needed for maintaining such equipment. Meanwhile, many important NASA missions suffer budget cuts, e.g. the #MSR
"An added degree of uncertainty is the ongoing agency reassessment of the overall MSR architecture, prompted by an independent review that found the current approach to MSR is behind schedule and over budget. That effort is scheduled to be complete in March."
While dissecting #NASA's status update on #Ingenuity (https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/509/ingenuity-reestablishes-communications/), one observes the following:
• Quality of communications, i.e. good or marginal, is not reported.
• Visibility plots suggest that the #MarsHelicopter should be in deep radio shadow, a fact that would make signal loss probable; but such an expectation is not mentioned. Instead it was reported earlier that comms "terminated early".
• The report does not hint on a correlation between
After arriving at Neretwa Vallis, #Ingenuity was apparently used mostly as a test-bed, flying 7 (+1) flights around the same riverbed terrain. Important to remember that there will be one or two Sample Retrieval Helicopters in the Mars Sample Return mission (#MSR), so testing s/w and new capabilities in the actual environment of Mars is a huge benefit to that future mission.
#Ingenuity could fly faster if its navigation system could cope with rapidly changing NAV imagery, which the heli uses to figure out its way to the destination. But the onboard processor has already reached its limits.
Then, how did the #MarsHelicopter achieve a new speed record lately (now at 10m/s)? Well, for that it had to break the altitude record too 😀. By flying higher the ground in the images appears to move slower, so higher speeds became feasible.
In December #Ingenuity is expected to perform two high-speed flights during which it will execute a special set of pitch-and-roll angles designed to measure its performance. The team designing the next generation of #MarsHelicopter (which will be used in the Mars Sample Recovery mission, #MSR), will use the data from those flights to fine-tune their aero-mechanical models of how rotorcraft behave on Mars.
"[T]here is “near zero probability” of Nasa’s plan succeeding on its current budget.
[...]
[S]everal leading scientists have called for the mission to be scrapped"
#NASA has tested scaled models of the #MAV (Mars Ascend Vehicle) of the #MSR (Mars Sample Return) mission at the Marshall Space Flight Center wind tunnel facility.
Despite it being only 24 inches long and 14 inches in height and width, the tunnel can achieve supersonic speeds of up to Mach 5 (about 3,800 mph).
• At least 70km of drive until 2028,
• 6 possible landing sites for the Sample Return Lander (#SRL)
• A full cache of 33 samples
Those and much much more, regarding the reality and expectations of both the #Mars2020 and #MSR missions in the Independent Review's Mars Sample Return Report. Get it here:
#Curiosity is currently 50 meters from the top of the elusive Gediz Vallis ridge, and right in front of an array of ridge rocks, ready to “snack” on for a few sols.
Some of these rocks got named after famous places on Earth, e.g. Επίδαυρος (the ancient theater), Μύτικας (the summit of Mt. Olympus), Χελμός (where the springs of Styx), and Πάτμος (where the Book of Revelation was written).
@lffontenelle@PaulHammond51
Having #Ingenuity fly on weekends would be a smart way to have (some of?) the team work on the #SRH s of the #MSR project during weekdays, and then run the #Mars2020 helicopter on weekends. One would expect the budget for such an operation to be much smaller, and that would allow the #MarsHelicopter mission to be extended without much difficulty to the end.
"[...] the helicopter executed the first half of its autonomous journey, flying north at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) for 466 feet (142 meters). Then a flight-contingency program was triggered, and Ingenuity automatically landed." #LAND_NOW
"Mars Ascent Vehicle Second Stage Test: A development motor based on the second-stage solid rocket motor design for NASA’s Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) undergoes testing March 29. [...] An important part of the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return campaign, the MAV would be the first rocket fired off another planet."
#Perseverance finished work at Ypsilon Lake and drove ~55m to WSW along the (guessed) planned route, where it stopped and took some pictures. One of them is attached below.
@PaulHammond51
:) If it doesn't disappear again behind a mountain or in a ditch, I think we'll get back to the good old days, with hundreds of HELI_NAV images coming a day or two after each flight.
And if it can get some of the dust off of its solar panels, then it may live to meet its relatives in '29 or whenever the #MSR mission occurs. 🙃
I'm feeling optimistic today 😀
Just to keep a long established habit live, the map shows my wild guess for #Flight53.
«NASA had asked for $949 million to support its Mars Sample Return mission, or MSR, in fiscal year 2024. [... T]he Senate offered just $300 million and threatened to take that amount away.»
SuperCam has chosen (directed by AEGIS or an Earth-based geologist?) to have a closer look at this group of smaller rocks, nestled among larger equally interesting-looking (to a Non-Geologist™) rocks.
@tom30519
• take videos of them flying
• stay with them in a loving relationship (well... ok)
• cooperate and coordinate with them to spot anything that moves (debris) or that looks interesting from the air
• get stuff they bring from afar to create a stash (core samples) and/or deliver them to you on a rocket, in case you want to keep them as souvenirs (#MSR).
We are a serious business, delivering goods on the ground anywhere in the solar system.
From a 500m high spot on Jezero's rim, an Ingenuity class SRH with the same Zigbee radio as the one now installed on the #MarsHelicopter will be able to have workable radio links with the SRL or #Perseverance within a ~14km LOS radius, using the same type antennas as the quarter wave monopoles now in use. This means that the scouting range of the two MSR SRHs can be about 1/3 of Jezero's diameter, a vast area compared to what the heli can do now.