The utility of an outcome can be calculated as the value of an outcome times the probability.

On the one hand we have a cool photo times >99%.
On the other hand we have the loss or impairment of a multibillion dollar mission times <1%.

That second probability doesn't have to be very high for that to be a really bad choice.

Risk...... potentially damage a $2.5B spacecraft

Reward..... an instagram post.

It's not a hard decision to make.

We have a picture from quite far away, maybe 100 m or so, in the corner of a frame. It's not unreasonable to think that an image from 30 or 40 m might be taken at some point. You obviously don't want to fly right above the rover but that's not necessary. However, the image has to have science value as well as coolness.

Phil

We knew there was a dip just after the beginning of flight#9 as it dropped into the crater, but I was curious if the elevation had increased again on the far side of the sand filled crater. The geojson data for the helicopter waypoints in the interactive map are only shown for the beginning and end of the flight, but they show a ~10.5 meter change.

Sol 120: elev: -2569.398

Sol 133: elev: -2579.895

I try to make a thing with one frame from Ingenuity. And it was pretty fun actually

Just to add to this debate, given that Ingenuity can take photos out to the horizon, there is no need to get particularly close to the rover.

Also, NASA funding is contingent on being voted for by politicians, who will of course take into account the interest their voters have in NASA missions.
The value of newsworthy images should not be underestimated. The 'selfies' are featured in media far more often than landscapes containing no human-made artifacts for a reason. It is the images that contain the evidence of human endeavour, a sign that 'we did this' that resonate the most with ordinary people. Even decades later images of the Apollo hardware on the moon had a real impact.

Having said all that, all the images from the drone are absolutely remarkable:)

Being an RC aircraft modeler I am in the planning phase of fabricating a functioning scale model of Ingenuity. That's right, a radio controlled coaxial model helicopter with details closely resembling our Ginny.
I've found online many photos of the helicopter, which are useful, and some drawings, some of which have questionable accuracy. Does anyone know of a source for accurate scale drawings of the aircraft?
I've found one site, https://forums.sketchup.com/t/modeling-the-...opter/154403/10, but it's always good to have multiple sources of information when modeling.

--Bill

I found this article very interesting


"Calculer la trajectoire d’Ingenuity grâce à ses photos" by Aurélien Genin.
https://reves-d-espace.com/calculer-la-traj...e-a-ses-photos/

Are you planning to model the full rotor control system? It has full variable-pitch control of both rotors, which makes it quite unusual and much more complex than the typical R/C coaxial (which is fixed pitch on both rotors) and needs six servos total.

On the plus side, the motors and linkages are simpler than the typical collective-pitch hobby setup: https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=...483#post8120133

Eventually, for the full-up scale model, I'll use the dual outrunner plus dual swash plate setup that Ginny uses. That concept is impressive! The major holdup there is getting or fabricating the flight control board plus software. It ain't available off the shelf.
For this initial stand-off scale ("close but not 100%") I will use the flight hardware and flight controller from the Blade CX4 coaxial model helicopter. It has been discontinued for a few years, but old unused copters are scattered around, as are spare parts, such as blades, shafts, linkage, and swashplates. The other day I picked up a new flight controller with control input mixer, dual motor speed controls and a directional gyroscope, and have feelers out for other parts.
This coaxial setup is simpler than Ginny. The upper rotor is not controllable and provides stability from a gyroscopic flybar. The lower rotor is fully controllable with swasplate linkage. The span of the rotor is 18", so it will be under half-scale. Using parts from other projects I can have an onboard video camera, even transmitting to a video headset. Go out to the local gravel pit and play Jezero Crater!
A silly project, but doing it because I can do it!

Sounds great, keep us updated!
(Maybe in a separate thread?)

Thorsten

Aerial Scouting of ‘Raised Ridges’ for Ingenuity’s Flight 10 flight details

Click to view attachment

EDIT
Does anyone know if the grid lines on this map relate to distance, lat/long or something else?

Looking forward to getting a closer look at these so-called Raised Ridges. And hoping that Percy will get an even closer look.

--Bill

Maybe more erosionally resistant material (mineralized?) on some of the faces of those polygonal fractures you can see all around in that view? Maybe some of the open fractures experienced fluid flow and were mineralized or altered. Could be indications of possible lake bottom spring deposits here or elsewhere. Something to keep an eye out for!

Tim, it could quite well be that. I'm leaning towards mineral deposits left in bedding planes or fractures. I'm puzzled why they leave two parallel to traces with a fairly uniform separation. We'll see soon enough.

--Bill

Sol 152: Navcam frames have just arrived on the server that appear to show the last frames of the landing
Click to view attachment

As a very active participant in the citizen science project Planet Four:Ridges (P4:R) I, too, am eager to see some ridges up close.Nothing like ground truth!

After combing through more than 125K subject images, from many tens of CTXs, I must say these ridges do not seem to be as tall as the "average" I've come across, but they are double, which is interesting. CRISM data can be used in some places and seems to point to different material for the ridges (as compared to the embedding terrain) although dust and instrument resolution impose limits. Hopefully a paper using the results from P4:R will be published in the near future.

The northern route will also pass relatively close (100 m ?) to another set of ridges. Fingers crossed

Fernando

Here are a couple of the flight 10 images contrast-stretched. I think Ingenuity landed a little short of (SW of) the intended spot, but not much, just a few meters.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

A fantastic visualisation of Ingenuity's 9th flight over Séítah with the position being calculated from photogrammetry link
The animation was created in Blender. A screen capture from the video is provided below

A superb 3D interactive version is also available on Sketchfab: link

Click to view attachment

A color photo of a double raised ridge taken by Ingenuity on sol 152
(enhanced)

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An aerial photo of a place where double raised ridges meet

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An aerial wide-baseline stereoscopic image.
Interesting shapes here and there.
The distortion in the lower right corner could not be compensated, beware of headaches.

Click to view attachment

. . . and a corresponding color image

Click to view attachment

Thanks tau. Great to see these images from Ingenuity's reconnaissance.

Spectacular, tau, thank you!

These are more than just pretty pictures. Not a geologist, but definitely see science value added from this ridge imagery.

Unloading joints?

I am not a geologist but I can definitely say that these ridges,
however interesting, are not similar to the ones the Planet Four:Ridges
Citizen Science project has focused on.
Fernando

If I can add something, the last frame from the trip. Color corrected, geometrically corrected.

We can see a dust devil I think, on the top left hand corner. And also that double-ridge feature.

The 10 pictures taken by Ingenuity during Flight 10 in animation. Vignetting, distorsion and colors corrected.

Click to view attachment

Get ready for Flight 11 soon!

https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/1422966874329866242

It sets up the helicopter for a 12th flight into Seitah South to plan future rover operations.

Phil

"Raised Ridges" imaged from an altitude of 12m during Flight 10, sol 152. Sky extended on post-processing.

Flight 11 in the bag 😊
Click to view attachment

These are two of the helicopter landing images, heavily stretched.

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment


Comparing with HiRISE (map will follow soon) I think Ingenuity landed about 20 m WSW of the target. The target (end of flight line in the released plan) was at the eastern edge of my first image (from higher altitude). The actual landing point is a bit to the upper left of the shadow in that image. The images are oriented roughly north up.

Phil

Hi folks!

Does anybody know the focal lenghts of the optics used for the NAV and RTE cams on Ingenuity? I have searched a lot and cant seem to find it anywhere.

What I know:

Inqenuity RLE camera
Sensor: Sony IMX214
Sensor type: Rolling shutter
Pixel size: 1.12µm
Optics: O-film, focal length ?mm

Ingenuity NAV camera
Sensor: Omnivision OV7251
Sensor type: Global shutter
Pixel size: 3.0µm
Optics: Sunny, focal length ?mm

Glad if anybody could help!

Thanks, Marek

Check out the discussion starting with this post for fields of view. If you look up the dimensions of the sensors that should let you calculate the focal lengths. Farther down that page the CAHVORE parameters are listed so that should specify the optics precisely.

RTE pictures from Flight 11 just arrived! And Perseverance photobombed the last first picture

I think this is likely a safe standoff distance for photographing Perseverance

Actually, Perseverance rover is present in 4 frames taken by RTE color camera.

Click to view attachment

The 10 pictures taken by Ingenuity during Flight 11 - vignetting, distorsion and colors corrected.

I speculated before about the "raised ridges" areas in Jezero as possibly being evidence of sublacustrine seep or spring mounds, or at least some alteration along fractures due to fluid movement.

Using a crop of one of Thomas' processed Ingenuity photos, I've highlighted some features that might be mineralized mounds or chimneys associated with this terrain. They have both mottled and lighter-colored zones, and some of the smaller-scale features on the rocks look much different than the volcanic and "clastic" textures we've been observing close to the rover's path. Terrestrial seep mounds and spring deposits are almost always associated with biomineralization. This could get fun!

The rover stopped a short distance from the sample site to acquire images of the wheel tracks that I am assuming where where the rover was stationed during the abraiding and coring exercise at the first sample site (site:6, drive:0).

Here is one of the Navcam's from that sequence (site:6, drive:2) We don't have the JSON or GeoJSON data yet, so I'm also assuming that this was where one of the wheels was positioned during sampling.

Note that the wheel track is slightly depressed into the regolith. That may be because the regolith was loosely compacted, or there could have been a small void in the rock beneath the surface. Pure speculation, but we did observe some small voids in the abraided area, so one could assume where there are some voids, there could be others, and voids under the wheel during coring could have led to this type of depression, and if these voids are common in the crater floor unit, then voids in the cored hole could have led to core break-up/loss. 100% speculation, but throwing it out there for comment
Click to view attachment

EDIT: Looking at the other Navcam track images at site:6, drive:2, it could be that some sort of scuffing was carried out to measure the friability of the surface rocks!

And another drive on sol 169
4-tile Navcam looking ~West.
Raw files, no processing, just tiled
Click to view attachment

The bright "X" near the shadow of the helicopter in the first color photo of flight 11 puzzled me.
I made a semitransparent bluish overlay from an earlier image of the helicopter's navcam, scaled it according to the actual (dark) shadow in the color image, rotated it, inverted it ... and it looks quite similar.

Click to view attachment

A recipe came to my mind that is sometimes used in restaurants to decorate dishes: You put a fork on the plate, sprinkle cocoa powder on it from a certain height, carefully remove the fork, and you have a decorative inverted shadow of the fork. On Mars, the cocoa powder can be replaced by the rusty Martian dust, but there is no one to carefully take the helicopter away. The rotation of the rotor blades should blow away the cocoa - respectively the dust. Or is the downward airflow enhanced at certain relative positions of the rotating blades to each other, and thus the dust is blown away only at certain places? Any idea how to explain this? If it is not an effect only in the imaging pipeline, it should also be visible in the helicopter's navcam images (not yet available).

Good catch! It does appear to be a real pattern on the ground, visible now in navcam:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/p...8_0000LUJ01.png
Here's an enhanced version:
Click to view attachment
And that does appear to be the take-off position.

Could it be that the adhesion of the dust is temperature-dependent? That pattern seems to correspond to the region shadowed before liftoff.

Probably this was shadowing by the blades from the dustfall at the previous landing.

Very cool! I like tau's fork analogy. After Ingenuity lands, maybe dust kicked up during the landing falls vertically back to the ground, except where it hits the blades first, thus making the silhouette on the ground. It's puzzling that the pattern wouldn't be disturbed again during the next takeoff, and maybe surprising that the dust would fall vertically enough to produce the sharp outline, but I can't think of a better explanation.

John

Good idea, fredk.
I just discarded the image-pipeline hypothesis, the cocoa-powder hypothesis, and the airflow-pattern hypothesis when I saw the freshly arrived helicopter navcam images a few minutes ago. The X is real, and it is the location of the takeoff for the 11th flight. Even the helicopter's footprints are visible in the color image (darker dots in the white circles). In a navcam image during takeoff, the bright X has sharp edges and actually looks like a photographic negative of the helicopter. The flight time was half past noon local solar time, the sun was high in the sky. I now also suspect that it has to do with sunlight, so a temperature effect or a reversible photochemical process could be the reason.

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment
(all images are enhanced here)

One temperature-dependent effect could be a slight coating of frost present in the shadowed areas. But the areas shadowed by the rotors at liftoff would've been in full sun earlier that morning, so any frost should've long since evaporated.

The dustfall shadowing hypotheses makes a clear prediction about the relative colour of the dust: if dust fell preferentially ouside the rotor shadows, the dust must be darker than the surface. If so, I'd expect there to be a somewhat darker area around the liftoff site due to dustfall after the previous landing, and the colour farther away should be closer to the colour in the rotor shadows. I see no clear sign of this. But anyway, do we expect the dust to be darker than the surface here?

If instead some mysterious temperature-dependent dust adhesion is responsible, the dust could be lighter or darker than the surface, depending on whether dust in cooler or warmer temperatures adheres better.

Indeed, the mysterious "X" could be poised to mark the spot of a profoundly serendipitous discovery!
It does seem odd that it was not obvious in previous flights, or perhaps image processing might reveal some faint indicators overlooked in previous take-offs?
If its not just a very tricky artifact of the hardware, there may be a critical variable that can be isolated from other instruments based on timing, dust, humidity, exposure, radiation... what else?

super stretch
The landing zone appears to be in a fan or funnel-shaped depression or deposit
also, the circular marks to the bottom of the 'X" may be rotor wash?
... nice mystery!
Click to view attachment

The circular features are flat round rocks with more dust on them in their center than on the edges.
There are a few more of this type in the image.