> how does the drone determine that the drop off spot for any delivery is safe at the time of drop off without "looking" down?

I couldn't get the question out of my head, so I went digging, and thought I would reply to myself with the answer in case anyone was wondering.

It seems to be that the drone changes orientation by 90 degrees during travel then the orientation it uses for take off and landing. there are not only forward facing cameras, but camera mounted on the left and right sides of the drone and a camera facing backwards.

So during its "travel phase" of flight no camera is pointing at the ground, but when the drone plans to drop off a package, it rotates its orientation 90 degrees so the camera that would be facing the rear during travel would now be looking at the ground.