Re:Ingenuity: NASA's Mars helicopter makes it three from three
by dogma1138 on Sunday April 25, 2021 @07:21PM
(#26937672)
It has a mass of 2kg, and as you said two sets of carbon fiber rotors that are operating at nearly 3000 RPMs that’s more than enough to do some damage to Percy it can easily break an antenna, arm or the mast camera as well as damage other experiments.
There is a very big difference between the landing shock when the rover was locked down and sensitive equipment protected and a flying lawnmower blades impacting sensitive equipment it wouldn’t surprise me it much of the rover skin is paper thin so you are potentially even at a higher risk here.
Re:Ingenuity: NASA's Mars helicopter makes it three from three
by stevenhuang on Sunday April 25, 2021 @09:38PM
(#26938424)
This sounds like someone who has never flown an RC plane before.
Nevermind the fact you think it won't damage the rover, which is beyond strange. The forces when landing have been modelled and taken into account, the helicopter crashing into the rover is not.
If any one of the instruments is hit at the wrong angle, it's not hard to see it will be permanently knocked out.
Rover can be far away from the area of operation of the Helicopter. Even if it crashes, it weighs next to nothing and despite of its blades spinning at 2900 RPM, it has very little kinetic energy if impacted compared to the amount of abuse the rover had to endure when landing.