First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

Roughly the start of success from the livestream: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;p1KolyCqICI?t=2265" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;p1KolyCqICI?t=2265</a><p>Video (of the video from Perseverance): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;NASA&#x2F;status&#x2F;1384099167832735748" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;NASA&#x2F;status&#x2F;1384099167832735748</a> (Better version from the livestream in child comment <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26861334" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26861334</a>)

Congrats to the whole Ingenuity team!<p>Exciting to see so many young faces and women on the team.<p>Also, I read up on the project lead MiMi Aung [1] - she&#x27;s very insipring. I remember seeing her interview at the time when the rover was about to land, so much anticipation and hope. Now, so much excitement is truly uplifting.<p>Congrats!<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;MiMi_Aung" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;MiMi_Aung</a>

From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jpl.nasa.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-succeeds-in-historic-first-flight" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jpl.nasa.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopte...</a> , the International Civil Aviation organization gave Ingenuity the the designator the aircraft type designator IGY, the call sign INGENUITY, and designated the Wright Brothers Field in Jezero Crater on mars as JZRO.<p>Hopefully that last one sticks when commercial service begins.

It made me so sad seeing them cheering and clapping, but not getting up and hugging each other :( So much happiness without the ability to vent it. Such a historical moment.

Yay! Cool that they made it :)<p>The video feed had a &quot;university team&quot; feel to it that was sort of unexpected and nice :)<p>I was surprised to see the tack sharp shadow on the image from the downwards facing navigation camera. My thinking was that the rotors needed to spin way faster on this drone than on a drone on earth, because of how thin the atmosphere is on mars. But the sharpness seems to indicate that the rotor speed is perhaps all that different! Or perhaps the whole thing is just so light that there is not so much mass to lift up?

Better quality video of the flight now on Youtube: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=wMnOo2zcjXA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=wMnOo2zcjXA</a>

Why does the downlink operator have what appears to be Github open? He seems to be carefully monitoring it. Is raw data going straight to Github?

What a treat! A very slow and quiet drama, presented by a tight group, a team, of geeks. Appreciated by everyone watching. Looking forward to more.

There is a really good explanation of this machine on Veritasium:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM</a>

Awesome! Well deserved congratulations all round to the team! Dare mighty things indeed.<p>Only negative thing I can think of is that I really hope the Perseverance rover has better video onboard just not transmitted yet. Maybe they will release it during the press conference later today. The one they showed was a little clipped. It had spin up. then it sort of cuts to the mid flight and then cuts to the spin down... all the takeoff and touchdown excitement is totally missing from the video they showed. If I didn&#x27;t know as much as I do about how image telemetry is handled... I&#x27;d actually have thought it was broken, thats how abrupt the transition is in the video.

I had to look it up because I could only see IGHTY THINGS, but the text on the wall is JPL&#x27;s mantra, &quot;DARE MIGHTY THINGS&quot;.<p>Indeed.

Well this changes the whole plot to <i>The Martian</i> if he can just get Domino&#x27;s delivered.

This first successful flight on Mars is literally out of this world. Well done to all those involved.

It&#x27;s cool. And surprising to me how young the team is. Contrast to the other videos I&#x27;ve seen of NASA &quot;mission control&quot; form the 60s etc.<p>Something transformational for me seeing this group of super young people achieve so much. Inspiring and hopeful and more :)

Is it too optimistic to hope that flights will keep the solar panels clean and Ingenuity could follow the rover some months.

The universe is 13.8 billion years old. It took about 7.3 billion years for the Earth to be formed. Then it took roughly 4.48 billion years for the first Hominins to wander on the planet. They evolved for almost 5.998 million years. Then they had small civilizations in the past 0.002 million years. They started flying in the past 0.0001 million years. 0.00005 million years later they landed on the moon. Almost 0.00005 million years after that, the flew a machine over another planet.<p>Let that sink in.

Wouldn&#x27;t the sky crane be truthfully described as a &quot;powered, controlled flight on another planet&quot;?

Funny how there seems to be neither dust on landing or take-off.

So, so cool! Congrats to everyone involved!<p>I recently wrote a short piece about Ingenuity’s COTS hardware, its open source software, and its radiation mitigation techniques: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;orbitalindex.com&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2021-02-24-Issue-105&#x2F;#ingenuity" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;orbitalindex.com&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2021-02-24-Issue-105&#x2F;#ingen...</a>

The engineering nerd factor is huge here and this is an amazing feat! Congrats to all involved.<p>I am curious what the importance of this is. What overall goal is this research contributing to? Is a mars landing system using &quot;helicopter&quot; style powered flight system the ultimate goal?

Cool! I wonder why balloons have not been used much on other planets? Is it the weight of the gas? The USSR had the the Vega 1 and 2 balloons on Venus, but presumably further missions could be pretty useful for studying planetary atmospheres, even for gas giants.

Countdown to when the take off is supposed to happen sorely missing.

I wonder if there&#x27;s a public repository of the kernel source deployed on the helicopter. I&#x27;d love to see if any of the code I&#x27;ve contributed just flew on Mars

How long have they all been living on Martian time?<p>And how much longer will they have to stay on it?

Woot!

Everyone on that team looks really young.<p>These either age discrimination or people on that team use really good moisturizers.<p>I kid.<p>Kudos to the team for launching a flying rover on Mars!