These videos are just over 90 seconds long, and according to the info posted are at 2x speed. That gives the flight time of 3mins. I thought the flight time was only able to be 90 seconds. Did I miss something where they are getting double the expected flight times?
> I thought the flight time was only able to be 90 seconds
That was just the initial guess before the mission, considering the power budget available for powering the rotor. After completing the planned objectives, NASA attempted longer flights; the last two were about 2 min 45 sec.
Is this a case of contractor over-engineering, NASA downplaying the abilities, both, neither? I don't mean any of that derogatorily. I know you'd rather announce the low numbers and look like champs when you get better than anounce high numbers and look like chumps when you get lower. It seems to be a bit of pride on NASA contractors building things that far exceed minimum mission requirements. I'd hate to be the contractor that gave NASA something that worked exactly as proposed, and then stopped working immediately. While it would be "successful", you'd hate to then be compared to Curiosity
The power budget had conservative safety margins because of the uncertainties. At this point, the uncertainties are gone, and they accomplished every objective of this tech demo. So they are just stress testing it, pushing it over the safety limits. The last landings were really tight, and the helicopter barely made it. Ingenuity is not a scientific instrument - it's a one-time proof of concept that got accepted into the mission at the last moment. It's essentially disposable now.
I get what you/they mean by it's not a scientific instrument, but yet it is at the same time. Like you said, they are pushing things, learning, gaining knowledge, etc. That's pretty much the job of scientific instruments. It's just that's it's all bonus learning.
One of the coolest things in VR is this reconstruction of Mars from Curiosity, the previous rover's stereo mast cam. It is the closest I will ever come to standing on the surface of another planet and is completely awe inspiring.
How long can the science mission of Ingenuity continue? When do the batteries/fuel die? Or will it accumulate too much damage to fly before that point?
How far can it stray from the rover?
Will it be able to aid in the search for life? Resources?
Ingenuity disables its optical height detection system a short distance over ground because kicked up dust could interfere with it. It proceeds downwards until it makes contact with ground. To reliably detect the acceleration of that, they have to "slam it" into ground at a speed of approximately 1 m/s.
This part might not be entirely accurate due to a lack of image data around takeoff and landing. I had to make my best guess from reference video taken by the Perseverance rover on a previous flight. That landing was a little rough and showed some bounce, so I recreated that.
