Re:Mars Helicopter successfully completed its second flight
by LunarRover on Thursday April 22, 2021 @01:32PM
(#26905437)
MRO has a max resolvable resolution of 1 meter - incredibly useful for planning, but not enough to keep a rover safe from harm, let alone do all possible science.
The max resolution from a low-altitude helicopter is probably two-three orders of magnitude more detailed
Re:Mars Helicopter successfully completed its second flight
by dylan604 on Thursday April 22, 2021 @02:30PM
(#26906229)
The rover itself also has high resolution cameras, so it should be able to detect things hazardous/interesting. The drone might be useful to know if it is worth climbing over a dune or whatever, but I still think MRO data would be useful for mission control to plot routes. So maybe the drone+rover would be much more capable as an autonomous pair requiring less input from mission control?
I tend to think of the rover and drone like one of those strategy games where you have to send out scouts to "discover" where to send the rest of the troops, and then plan out how many "moves" to do it in. But then I remember we have the MRO that has pretty much scouted the entire planet. It just takes us a lot of "moves" to get our troops there.