Mars rotorcraft

[pmccarthy]

The video showing testing of the Mars Ingenuity chopper seems to show one rotor going the wrong way. I wonder if this was deliberate or the reason for the delay.

 

[kasper]

You can only hope it’s either a deliberate reverse run or just an illusion due to frame rate. 
 

surely they’d didn’t put the motor in backwards.... it’s a a long way to go to fix it 

[red750]

My first thought was frame rate, too. But the frame rate would apply to both rotors, so they would both appear to run backwards, unless they are spinning at different speeds. 

[Old Koreelah]

I’m surprised the rotors are individually controlled; the simplest (and presumably most reliable) way to control that craft is surely via weight shift.

[kasper]

Well it has flown so they either found reverse on the the backwards rotor or it was a frame issue on the ground test run. 

[kgwilson]

Well the on screen comment of "software update will fix flight mode transition issue" is a pretty good clue. Somewhere along the line a software glitch has reversed the polarity of one of the rotors 

[FlyBoy1960]

I wonder if the drone is registered and the operators licenced ?

[kgwilson]

Well they have fixed it and it has flown to 3 metres for less than a minute with plans for more ambitious distances of about 15 metres and 5 metres of altitude before its mission is complete by the end of April.

[facthunter]

Surely it has contra props or else it would just spin the box underneath. The appearance of the blade sections confirms  this.  Nev

[kgwilson]

Yes but the test video showed both spinning clockwise. The top one should have spun anti clockwise. They said there was a software glitch and that was fixed so they obviously got the top rotor spinning anti clockwise & it flew properly.

[rgmwa]

1 hour ago, kgwilson said:

Yes but the test video showed both spinning clockwise. The top one should have spun anti clockwise. They said there was a software glitch and that was fixed so they obviously got the top rotor spinning anti clockwise & it flew properly.

Good thing they did a ground check but astonishing that they had to fix such a basic problem. Surely whoever built it must have run a test before they launched it.  

[octave]

22 minutes ago, rgmwa said:

Good thing they did a ground check but astonishing that they had to fix such a basic problem. Surely whoever built it must have run a test before they launched i

 I am pretty sure it was only an illusion caused by frame rate.  If they were indeed spinning the wrong way then perhaps this was intentional.  By the way here is a video made a while ago showing the building and testing. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM

Edited April 20, 2021 by octave

[octave]

With regard to the apparent blade moving the wrong way, the NASA sight has the same video and gives it this caption. 

 

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s carbon fiber blades can be seen in this video taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover on April 8, 2021, the 48th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. They are performing a wiggle test before the actual spin-up to ensure they were working properly.

 Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

[facthunter]

They don't get images constantly. There's a delay and that must make it interesting. Nev

[Old Koreelah]

11 minutes ago, facthunter said:

They don't get images constantly. There's a delay and that must make it interesting. Nev

Yep. Because of the 20 minute signal delay, they have to just trust the robot to straighten up and fly right.

[Marty_d]

15 hours ago, FlyBoy1960 said:

I wonder if the drone is registered and the operators licenced ?

 

If Mars CASA doesn't do a ramp check, they're all good.