Final images of Ingenuity reveal an entire blade broke off the helicopter | Hacker News Reader

Final images of Ingenuity reveal an entire blade broke off the helicopter

arstechnica.com

139 pointsisaacfrond60 comments

In case anyone wants to keep an eye on the ongoing stream of images from the rovers, Nasa has an easy API that gives you a JSON file describing each image for the day.

https://api.nasa.gov/mars-photos/api/v1/rovers/perseverance/...

Get an API key here https://api.nasa.gov/

For example, today's record for a picture of the helicopter with the missing blade looks like this:

  {
   "id":1229137,
   "sol":1072,
   "camera":{"id":48,"name":"SUPERCAM_RMI","rover_id":8,"full_name":"SuperCam Remote Micro Imager"},
   "img_src":"https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/pub/ods/surface/sol/01072/ids/edr/browse/scam/LRE_1072_0762099726_099ECM_N0501618SCAM02072_0010I9J02_1200.jpg",
   "earth_date":"2024-02-24",
   "rover":{"id":8,"name":"Perseverance","landing_date":"2021-02-18","launch_date":"2020-07-30","status":"active","max_sol":1072,"max_date":"2024-02-24","total_photos":202033,"cameras":[...]}
  }

The ultimate fate of all toy helicopters.

Wonder if the new "silent propeller" ring configuration shapes will be more durable. I recall the early Radio Shack toy helis had guard rings on their propellers, it helped immensely but they still were delicate and easy to kill.

Martians got nuthin on Earthlings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq62GXEX4-U

(Just curious why durability wasnt like 0. on the project RFP given that its a really far away deployment arena...

(Also, to raise money, we should do Battle Bots on Mars. There should be a Twitch Rover (recall that thing from a while back about how many users fought over input into how it was driving...)

EDIt:

0. Make durable.

1. Make it Fly.

2. Make it crawl, when 0=[1] and 1=[0].

> we should do Battle Bots on Mars

has there ever been a sci-fi movie about 'No-limits barred" competitions on uninhabitable worlds?

like go ahead, make a nuclear-powered doomsday bot and fight them on this rock, no one is there anyway

Check out Peace on Earth by Stanislaw Lem.

I've got half a mind to read that book again, because there are some things about it that I just can't put my finger on...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosotomy

You have to have limits or in the limit you just end up with "whose nuclear bomb goes off closer to the starting whistle" or some equivalent.

Now, even if you are interested in watching that and the precise mechanics of how to shave those last few nanoseconds off the explosion interest you, it's still a problem for "engagement" that the ruleset converges to one solution.

Battlebots has had several similar issues over the years and a common discussion on its fan sites is whether or not the most recent rule set (whatever it may be at the time) is also converging on a single solution as the only viable option.

Real car racing has an even bigger problem with this, in that the racing leagues simultaneously want to project an image of technological innovation and how all the teams are brilliant geniuses advancing the field of motor sports, while at the same time having to deal with how boring it is when one team ends up winning a hugely disproportionate amount of the time if you really did just leave it down to technical acumen and the vagueries of who started with an engine design this year that happened to have more optimization room than the other engines. They dress it up in a lot of rules and throw a lot of smokescreen up but to a pretty significant degree they basically just find some reason to throw weight penalties on to whoever is winning too much.

Maybe we should put not just one, but several limits, denominated in joules (or kilotons), splitting the competition into "weight classes" in terms of maximum energy transfer. So e.g. flyweight class could end up being a competition between smart subsonic bullets, while the middleweight class may see a nuclear bomb facing off against pumped x-ray laser.

I'd definitely watch the heck out of it.

The production challenges seem daunting: how many cameramen are we prepared to lose filming the fights?

"Smart camera drones" ha ha. you seen the unions around the entertainment industry?

Raises an interesting question of who's laws apply on the Moon in such a case. no country has a unique ownership in the Moon due to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, but that just means no country owns the Moon. In the case of a camera crew back on Earth, or even on the Moon, would any union contracts apply?

M O O N that spealls Moounion

1969: first human on the Moon.

2069: first union on the Moon.

i think i got one: the winner is chosen by 'style', instead of simply strongest bot

while competing, camera drones and internal POV cams stream to audiences, who can 'feedback' to the robot

i don't want to go down the 'microtransaction' route, but maybe there's a way teams could leverage that to bide their style during less tense moments, before pumping it up when the time is right

hunger games sponsorships... pay to extend the suffering and the drama.

that might optimize for cute but tough bunny bots that do a Paul Rubens in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" death scene every time they're hit.

You literally just described "Space Influencer Bots"... what a weird fetish you have.

EDIt:

Flippancy aside:

Having battle teams that can deploy micro bots/bpts to mars and have to fund raise here on earth to have them Musk'd to mars( like "uber'd" but "Musk'd")

and a player has control over a bot - but what if the satellites heading to mars could fight?

Or coporate sponsers seeded stationary orbitals around mars and the bots could be deployed and driven by Humans on earth 0 and so you would have the so-and-so sponsored here and battle it out on mars.

> "Space Influencer Bots"

i just figure with all those light-years in between here and the next world, we're gonna need _some_ kind of entertainment to occupy all that time

> deploy micro bots/bots to mars and have to fund raise here on earth

makes me think of a Cosmic-scale everyone-participates version of Risk

if my bots meet Musk-teams bots on Mars, every fight will be televised in 3D/16k@120Hz

It would be wonderful if we can have actual IRL space batteles - but everything is on a micro-scale - we have little mothership factories which are off limits, but they manufacture micro bots that can be flown FPS by Earthlings.

But supply chains are open game (but its Laser Tag (you dont destroy the enemy - you knock them out and they have to be rescued.

i too prefer the microbot factory future to the paperclip factory future

we just have to teach AI 'fun' :D

[Scene: A mock-up of the Mars rover control room, with screens showing live feeds from the rover's cameras. Two scientists, Dr. Smith and Dr. Johnson, are seated at a desk, facing the audience.]

Dr. Smith: Good evening, folks. Tonight, we've got a bit of news from our Martian friend.

Dr. Johnson: That's right, Dr. Smith. It seems our rover encountered a little hiccup.

Dr. Smith: Just a wee one. The rotor snapped off.

Dr. Johnson: The rotor?

Dr. Smith: Yes, the rotor. It's now orbiting Mars on its own.

Dr. Johnson: How did that happen?

Dr. Smith: Well, it seems the rover stumbled upon a Martian pothole.

Dr. Johnson: Potholes on Mars?

Dr. Smith: Indeed, very Martian-esque potholes. Anyway, one of these craters snagged the rotor, and snap! Off it went.

Dr. Johnson: So, what's the plan now?

Dr. Smith: Well, first, we panic.

Dr. Johnson: Panic?

Dr. Smith: Yes, it's customary in these situations. Adds a touch of drama.

[Both scientists start faux-panicking, flailing their arms and looking alarmed.]

Dr. Johnson: Alright, panic mode complete. Now what?

Dr. Smith: Now, we get creative. We've got some of the brightest minds back at mission control.

Dr. Johnson: But they're light-years away!

Dr. Smith: True, but they're also light-years ahead when it comes to problem-solving.

Dr. Johnson: So, we sit tight and wait for a solution?

Dr. Smith: Bingo. In the meantime, we can enjoy the Martian views on these screens.

[They both turn to observe the screens showing the Martian landscape.]

Dr. Johnson: You know, even with a snapped-off rotor, Mars still has its charm.

Dr. Smith: Absolutely, Dr. Johnson. It's moments like these that remind us why we explore the great unknown.

[They share a nod of agreement as they continue to monitor the screens, signaling the end of the skit.]

Considering how low their stated expectations were for Ingenuity, I think it was more than durable enough. It's a huge bummer that it's grounded, but it was also a fantastic resounding success.

Also, 0. was "get it to fly", and that required a pretty wild rotation speed, which probably limited their ability to make it much more durable.

Remember that people were skeptical that they could pull off flight at all, and they set the bar for success at 5 flights but delivered 72 before it crashed!

The linked story about how it narrowly got there is well worth reading:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/before-ingenuity-ever-...

Haven't we proven we can do "durability" and "crawl", with Curiosity, Spirit, and Opportunity lasting several years longer than planned? Ingenuity was only supposed to last 30 days, but far exceeded that, even if the rotor did snap off.

0=[3+] 1=[1] 2=[2]

Plus, no matter what you do you're still working in an environment where the very dust itself is an abrasive finer than anything found on Earth, able to work its way into every single part of your rotor assembly. You're basically designing for "how many days can we keep it working" rather than "can we make it Mars-proof".

To be fair, all helicopters have parts with expiration dates. This is just how you have to design them, a part gets this many operating hours and is then replaced.

Is the dust in Mars really that abrasive? I was under the impression that it isn't nearly as bad as the stuff on the moon where there's no at atmosphere to cause the wind erosion that wears the rough edges of surface material down.

It’s still abrasive, even if not as bad.

A helicopter on the moon would have an even harder time working.

Perhaps we can use Moon dust to our advantage: kick a thick enough cloud of it, and the helicopter will have something to fly in.

It’s probably better to repurpose the energy of the kick than to push off what has been kicked up

Especially considering there's no air for a helicopter's blades to act on.

That can have an effect, ha!

Yes, it's dust, so it's abrasive. The question is whether or not it is more abrasive than Earthly dust.

This brought back a memory of going to the mall as a young kid (late 90s) and seeing those toy helicopters everywhere!

If any technology could be cute, then surely this was it. I always got little engine that could vibes when reading news about it

That's what happens when you take a very cool project and back it with very talented PR people.

The images remind of me the "fines" mentioned in KSR's Mars trilogy. Apparently the surface of Mars is covered in very fine particles 1000's of times smaller than grains of sand. Earth is too wet for particles like that to form. The fines would pretty much get anywhere, into any structure, through human cell membranes. We have no idea what affect they would have on earth biology.

> We have no idea what affect they would have on earth biology.

We know that lunar regolith is pretty damn bad, and that Apollo astronauts did not enjoy even their very short, small exposures much

It's thought to be quite toxic both because it's abrasive and filled with perchlorates and chlorates (and tests with simulants based on samples returned have provided additional evidence for this). Mars soils would have largely the same problems.

I do know that one theory of how asbestos is carcinogenic is that it is so fine it just saws away at the actual DNA molecules. However asbestos works, it does seem that those fine nano-particles could act similarly

https://youtu.be/_L1305206OA?feature=shared&t=98

Just another problem with terraforming Mars. Instead, we should set Jupiter on fire and live on Europa.

You say problem, true Martian hears challenge. Turning a desert into paradise probably starts with raising air humidity a bit.

Nano-particles are like a dirty water, but without water.

Clay particles on Earth are that size (micron scale). Try disturbing the dried out surface of clay ground on a hot day and a fine mist goes flying everywhere. Mars dust particles are about the same size. They're too big to go through cell membranes.

Hope I can visit it in a museum some day.

The fact that it landed upright made me wonder if the blade already had a small crack forming where it is thinner (towards the opposite side of rotation) but was kept in place during its last flight, then Ingenuity landed and an electronic brake was triggered to recover some power to recharge the batteries. At this point the partially cracked blade because of its momentum got an opposite force that widened the crack until the blade was being torn away. Could make some sense, although there are so many ifs to satisfy.

What a cool experiment (a Mars helicopter!). I can't wait until we (humanity) have "boots on the ground" there to make this sort of experimentation a few step changes quicker.

I agree having grown up on sci-fi about that but increasingly wonder whether we’ll get enough AI to change the cost dynamics for sending fragile meat-bags to a harsh environment instead of robots. Also, I suspect climate change is going to force NASA to direct an increasing percentage of their work to earth, but I hope the symbolic potential keeps us from looking completely inward.

Strong enough AI, probably. Until then, light speed dictates that even remote robotic exploration would work better with a command&control facility at the scene.

How about in geosynchronous orbit? So the control facility doesn't have to deal with the fine particles.

That is what I expect how things will be done. High orbit saves you not just from the fine dust, but also all the Δv you'd need to land people and get them up later.

Oh, no argument that it’d be better in terms of quality but I’m wondering how it’d look from a cost perspective. Say we could make a self-driving rover which could handle basic maneuvering, avoiding / recovering from hazards and storms, etc. – at some point there’d be a trade off between having many rovers running for years for less budget than a human crew would need, and depending on the budget climate it might be better to have a cheaper option that doesn’t fail to deliver any scientific results if a big dependency isn’t funded.

You also don’t need smart rovers. You just need dumb rovers with a bunch of sensors and a radio, a few satellites and then a local command server with all the processing power centralized.

You run an AI on that with a bunch of safeguards, and constant human albeit speed-of-light-delayed monitoring that can correct erroneous decision making.

Stop poking holes in my desperate attempt to save the future of manned space exploration! :(.

(If we keep reasoning this way, humanity will forever be stuck on this ball of mud, eventually wiring our heads to computers, and then the closest we'll come to exploring the universe is browsing through pictures snapped by ancient probes.)

My very far future prediction is that either:

A. We retreat in the comfy matrix whilst we let robots rule the roost. If the matrix could simulate.. say.. Star Trek style exploration for you in a more interesting, comfortable and challenging way than reality, why would you want the watered down real version?

B. We digitize ourselves, but (most of us) prefer reality. To travel to a different world you get beamed over, into a vat-grown android body.

Human bodies are much too fragile for long distance space travel. Why add massive amounts of extra required resources (cryo-G couches, extra fuel due to those couches, bigger ship for those couches, redundancy, etc.) when you can just launch a robotic factory at much higher Gs, land (always perilous), let it bootstrap itself into a forward base, vat-grow a couple of android bodies and then you get to beam into the frontier :)

For the not-so-far future I see us putting a few bases on the moon and a very scrappy base on Mars, all manned by warm-blooded humans.

You’d probably want some intelligence in both places to improve the odds if a survivable mishap or dust storm breaks communications, but yes, keeping it in orbit does have some really nice properties for a longer running program.

Rest in peace, Ingenuity. (Or should I say, rest in pieces?) You will be missed.

A thousand years from now, or maybe a million, someone is going to be digging in the sand and will find that broken prop, and then the rest of the helicopter, and it is either going to be mind-blowing, or mundane.

Depends on if we're still around, I guess.

I'm curious that multiple sources seem to suggest we may never know why the blade broke.

Did we not log the accelerometer/gyro data? A blade breaking would be very obvious on there. A blade hitting the ground would also be very obvious.

Could Ingenuity fly with 3 blades or is Ingenuity too heavy for that?

I expect it was flying on such razor thin margins of lift thanks to the sparse atmosphere that it needs all 4 to have a hope of liftoff.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com