UKH

What's going on here then? I thought it was due to fly last Monday?

Admittedly, flying in 1% of Earths atmosphere AND on Mars - it should have probably have been called Preposterous

I am intrigued though, what's the story? 

I think this partly answers my question https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/292/working-the-challeng...

Outrageous.

In reply to Phantom Disliker:

hurrah! even if the speaker was unintelligible.

In reply to wercat:

Audacious! They did it. Bravo!!! 

In reply to Phantom Disliker:

That'll make the UK fishing rod manufacturer who made the rotor blades very happy!

In reply to Phantom Disliker:

More bloody drones in the Martian hills

In reply to Lankyman:

Interesting philosophical question: If a drone flies on a planet where there's nobody to hear it is it still a f*#£ing annoying noise?

In reply to Toerag:

Which company was that ??

In reply to Lankyman:

I look forward to a series  of "Hunted"  where the fugitives are pursued over the surface of Mars

In reply to Toerag:

Do you know the manufacturing process-very intrigued.

I wounder if they are a braided carbon fibre tube squashed flat ( like as you say a carbon pole from fishing).

In reply to Phantom Disliker:

Here's a good video on some of the technical difficulties of flying the chopper in the thin atmosphere on Mars and indeed testing it on Earth. The rotor speed is 5-6 times faster than a Earth copter.

youtube.com/watch?v=GhsZUZmJvaM&

In reply to Paul Phillips - UKC and UKH: I'm sure the lack of wind resistance helps with the spin speed , although is obviously THE big problem here, but how audacious (in a positive way) to even think of taking a drone to another planet

In reply to arch & neilh:

Century Composites in the north-east. Publicly they make high-performance fishing rods but less publicly they make parts for F1 cars and other industries. They use 'spread tow' carbonfibre with graphene-infused resin and autoclave the items under pressure as well as temperature to eliminate voids in the matrix.  Graphene-infused resins are the current step-change in fibre-reinforced composite performance allowing increased strength, stiffness, toughness and reduced weight.  Spread tow is either cloth pre-preg, or directly wound, I don't know what they'd have used for the rotors as they use both methods on their rods. It's essentially flat bundles of fibres rather than round threads which results in up to 20% increase in stiffness due to less 'crimp' as the fibres cross each other.

https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/the-spread-of-spread-tow

In reply to Toerag:

They’ve bought out some Graphene rods, very expensive.

In reply to Toerag:

I suspect that Manchester uni are heavily involved somewhere.. Composites centre there which is part of their  former textiles department. So obvious link to graphene at Manchester.

This sort of process shas been going on along time in fishing rod world, think it started with glass fibre rods and just has developed form there.So its an extension of that I guess.

Fascinating.

Carbon is mutlifilament ( always has been) and has never been round like a monofilament.So its always flat so to speak.

In reply to neilh:

not to forget Durham, just up the road - I'm sure I saw something written up  about graphene spinoffs there

In reply to wercat:

not in the same league in textile processing

In reply to wbo2:

Would be even more positive if they could take all of them.

In reply to Paul Phillips - UKC and UKH:

Given the rotor speed,  I'm surprised there is no blurring in the shadow image - shutter speed (or the electronic equivalent) would have to be 1/20,000 sec or faster I reckon. An ideal image for the conspiracy theorists / denialists!

In reply to neilh:

Resin reinforcement has been done for years - Daiwa were using SiC 'whiskers' in their 'Whisker Kevlar' range in the mid 80's. Graphene seems to be a better ingredient to do so, and its amazing how big an effect such a small percentage dose has.

yes, but spread tows are flatter than the 'bundles' normally used in CFRP - bad description on my part .

In reply to Toerag:

Goes back far longer than the 80's.

60's easily, just less well known.

I have amongst my textile processing literature an informative guide by one Atkins & Pearce  illustrating some of the processes which were being played around with over in the States.

There was alo quite a bit of experemental stuff being done in the UK thta got  shelved as there were not good enough manufacturing processes back then.

I am on the periphery of this, not really my area.

In reply to petemeads:

I'm not sure about the mechanics of that tbh. The motors on some multi-rotors can spin a lot faster though. Like over 12,000 RPM on the small DJI drones.

In reply to Phantom Disliker:

A point made to me on a different social media channel: there is one (known) living person who witnessed the first powered flight upon both Earth and Mars.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

What? Do you mean the Kittyhawk flight in 1903 and this drone on Mars? If this person had just been born on the beach and saw the Wright flight then they'd be at least 117 years old.

In reply to Ron Rees Davies:

Now you are asking.

My guess is it is a much less annoying noise, possibly to the point where it is no longer f*cking annoying.  The volume will drop off faster with distance due to Mars' atmosphere being so thin.

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/224870/sound-propagation-at-low...

It's also going to be a higher pitched noise because the rotor is going about 6 x faster than a drone on earth.

In reply to Lankyman:

Exactly so.

In reply to Phantom Disliker:

Video from the latest flight, along with a ground shot from the helicopter.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-flies-fas...

It does raise the question, who is the regulatory body for atmospheric flight on Mars?