General > General Technical Chat
Mars helicopter
floobydust:
The watchdog tripped during the high-speed spin test? It seems to have a maker aspect, how does that not get caught during testing the software on earth.
dietert1:
They have a communication time lag of several minutes and there is no GPS on Mars. I'd guess it's something as horrible as the sky crane. Or even more difficult since you want 3D movement instead of maintaining a certain position for half a minute or so.
Regards, Dieter
MikeK:
I haven't looked into it, but I suspect the helicopter engineers weren't the usual group of engineers, since the helicopter was actually an add-on to the mission. I'm just glad that deploying it didn't hang up the rover. I would quickly get over the novelty of the helicopter flying on Mars, but the Perseverance rover should continue to provide valuable scientific observations for quite a while.
james_s:
You seem kind of obsessed with the rover getting on with things. What's the rush? It isn't going to wear out just sitting there, and it doesn't have to be parked just waiting while the helicopter is sorted out. They have whole teams working on the project, they can multitask.
MikeK:
Because...Science!
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