Thread by @WeAreSpaceScout

LIVE NOW: NASA is holding a press conference previewing the first flight of a Martian helicopter - Ingenuity.

Watch:

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1374400587589066768

Today's speakers:

Lori Glaze, director, NASA Planetary Science, HQ
Bobby Braun, director, Planetary Science, JPL
J. Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer, JPL
Håvard Grip, Ingenuity chief pilot, JPL
Farah Alibay, Perseverance integration lead for Ingenuity, JPL

Glaze: "We're here today to celebrate great engineering achievements that required hard work, perseverance, and ingenuity. The Perseverance rover carries several technology demonstrations - including the helicopter."

"Perseverance and Ingenuity go across all of NASA. When the decision was made to add the helicopter, JPL looked to the aeronautics directorate for their expertise. They verified it could fly in Mars's super-thin atmosphere and analyzed the design."

"That small rover, [Sojourner, a tech demo] enabled all of our future missions. Now, Perseverance is carrying its own tech demo - the helicopter."

"Ingenuity is a limited-time project. It has 31 earth days to try to lift off. It is not intended to collect science - but it is innovative."

"Ingenuity will open new possibilities. Could we image areas not visible from space? Plot ahead for rovers for what has the best science? Support a human mission? Those are questions for another day, but important."

Balaram: "When we see this image of Ingenuity, what comes to my mind is that it is unique. It's a unique design, with its four foot blades, little solar panels, and a fuselage filled with electronics. It is capable of that kind of flight, with the blades spinning 40x/second."

Balaram: "But I also see a spacecraft. It survived launch, it survived space, it survived EDL on the bottom of the rover, and it has survived all of the challenges and design issues for a spacecraft. But most, I think of it as an experimental aircraft."

"Here, it is a tradition of experimental aircraft to expand and open aerial mobility. The Wright Brothers in 1903 flew with a small spruce and fabric system, we with Ingenuity with all our materials are proud to honor that experimental aircraft from long ago by carrying fabric."

This fabric, being placed on the Ingenuity #MarsHelicopter and now on Mars, flew on the first aircraft at Kitty Hawk with the Wright Brothers.

"A lot of testing, everything we could possibly do here has been done, and now it is time to take that same vehicle to Mars and subject it to the ultimate test. There are challenges, we're on the surface and exposed to atmosphere, we are driving to an airfield..."

"There will be a long, 10-day sequence of deployments, and then the deposition of the helicopter and first sunlight. We will be on our own, autonomous, waiting for commands. There will be approximately a week of commissioning, and we will be methodical as this unfolds."

"And then, we will undertake our first flights, undertake more aggressive flights."

Grip: "Immediately after the rover landed, we started to search for a good place to drop the helicopter. We wanted to find an airfield, where it is safe to take off and land. That area must be flat and have few obstacles. That area should also be within a larger flight zone"

"We're looking for something that has texture, too, so the helicopter can keep track of where it's at. We looked at the flight zone via satellite imagery and then the rover itself. We began to realize we have a great airfield right in front of our noses."

"We were finally comfortable saying yes, this will be our home base for the helicopter. That is the first airfield on another planet, and we'll deploy in the middle of that. As for the flight, it is special and the most important. It will be the first powered flight on Mars."

"We met most of our goals by getting here, and will declare complete success if we complete our first flight. It will consist of a takeoff, climb to 3 meters, hover in place, turn, and land. We have a simulation that shows what that flight might look like."

"When the helicopter goes to fly like this, it receives instructions hours ago that tells it exactly what to do. It knows what we want. But it has to work hard during the flight to make that happen. It takes images of the ground below it at about 30 fps and tracks it."

"It makes tiny adjustments to the controls - 500 times per second, to adjust for winds and gusts."

Alibay: "What you're looking at is the debris shield on the ground that protected our helicopter. The coolest thing is you can see the helicopter tucked in, doing okay. We're driving to that deployment area that will take a couple of days, and when we get there..."

"We will take a series of steps to take the helicopter from there to vertical on the ground. We will be imaging each time to make sure the helicopter is in the expected position before dropping it. The most stressful day will be separating it and dropping it."

"You can see our testing here, where we dropped it in our Mars Yard. What is most stressful is that once the helicopter is separated, we must drive away within 25 hours. It can only survive one night without sun. After we drive, we'll get a first shot of Ingenuity by itself."

"Once we drop Ingenuity on the ground, the rover will slowly back away, imaging Ingenuity every step of the way until it gets to its "rover observation location," a look-out. We'll do our best to capture Ingenuity in flight - hoping to take images and video."

"Now space is hard, we have two separate missions with two separate clocks, but we'll try. On the rover side, we're a small team supporting Ingenuity. We have our own jobs doing Perseverance, but it's been such fun for our team to support Ingenuity."

Braun: "I want to talk about my former community in Boulder - before JPL I served as the dean of engineering at University of Colorado, Boulder. On behalf of the team, our hearts go out to them today. JPL has many parters there, and to my former students, we stand with you."

"This past year, our world has largely been about perseverance. But it feels to me now like the month of Ingenuity. And it's Ingenuity and this team that are ready to make history in April. Ingenuity is an apt descriptor for this team - a diverse team of innovators."

"I want to take a moment, on behalf of the Lab, to thank them. And while we could fly Ingenuity in a near vacuum, we did not build it in one, we had many partners, such as NASA Langley, Qualcomm, and Lockheed Martin (and more)."

"As Glaze said, Ingenuity is a tech demo. And it was not that long in history ago that in a cleanroom nearby, another tech demo was made - Sojourner. And we're glad to add Perseverance to the list of increasingly complex craft - and it all started with a tech demo."

"To talk about the location Perseverance will watch the flight from, the team has named it in honor of our long-time colleague, mentor, and leader, Jacob van Zyl, who passed away unexpectedly a month after Perseverance's launch." #MarsHelicopter

"Jakob was a renaissance man, from Spitzer, Juno, InSight, MarCO, he seemed to do it all. When Ingenuity was conceived it was Jakob who pushed this team forward. He came from Namibia and was passionate about sharing spaceflight with the Namibian people. Jakob was a dear friend."

"He would have been so proud to see this team's work. On behalf of all of us, it's my honor to announce that today, we are recognizing Jakob's significant contributions by naming the location on Mars from which Perseverance will look out as Van Zyl Overlook."

Media Q&A starting now.

Marcia Dunn, AP: "Is there a timeline in April for when you will meet your milestones? What no-earlier-than date do you expect the first flight? As for the fabric sample, how big is it?"

Balaram: "The flight is NET April 8. That could change in either direction." #MarsHelicopter

"The fabric is the size of a postage stamp, and it was originally used on the Wright Flyer. That's what is on Ingenuity right now."

@UPI: "If Ingenuity is a total success, how soon could we see another helicopter on Mars?"

Glaze: "I think this is an enabling capability we'll demonstrate over the next several weeks. As far as a specific opportunity, we'd like to provide competitive opportunities."

"We do offer those on a periodic basis, and we hope that the community views aerial platforms as a way to expand our Mars exploration."

Braun: "It's an analogous situation to when Sojourner first flew. At that time, Spirit and Opportunity were not planned. But after Sojourner.."

"There was a change in plans and evolution in thinking. It's possible we could have a change here too."

@SPACEdotcom: "Is that a 31-day timeline a hard deadline? Could Ingenuity operate past that?"

Braun: "It's the month of Ingenuity. We're confident we can conduct our demonstration in that month. We also have a science mission. That month is our window and we're confident in it."

@Free_Space: "What is the riskiest part of actually flying on Mars? Dust? Other elements that could not be tested for?"

Balaram: "I think the biggest challenge will be flying in the atmosphere of Mars with its own dynamics. These are things which we test w/ wind tunnels."

"We have some confidence that everything will be good, but we cannot know. There are challenges related to surviving the night, we have a thermal system and it's hard to keep something small warm, there's many challenges before the flight, but the dynamics are the biggest."

@joroulette: "Is there anything that was experienced since it landed that has changed your expectations? Anything that would save it from blowing over?"

Balaram: "We are learning more and more about the specific environment. There is no concern for blow-over."

"Really, all the challenges are related to aerial flight, and we will get more information up to the day of the flight. We'll know what the wind looks like, the solar power, and we'll be fully prepared. Right now things are looking reasonable. Nothing stands out."

@AFP: "What might happen if Ingenuity does not get the charge required? Does it die?"

Alibay: "That last phase was the deployment to the ground. Once we separate the last umbilical, that timeline is 25 hours in terms of how long batteries will last without sun."

"From the rover point of view, that's a reasonable timeline, we just have to drive 5 meters, something we do right now, but we're giving as many chances as possible to get that drive off as we have as it's critical. If the drive does not happen on that day we'll overnight debug."

Balaram: "As long as they get off eventually during the next day, even if a little bit late, we should be okay."

Social Media Q: "How high will it go up? If it works, how will it help future missions?"

Grip: "Our first flight will be 3 meters, and the nominal future flight will be 5. As far as potential - we use drones on Earth, we could use a drone to scout, do science, support humans"

@WSJ: "Can you give us a program cost for Ingenuity, separate from the overall cost? As a subset, any idea about the development cost of these remarkable blades to handle the thin atmosphere? Any tech transfer between the rotorcraft for Mars and rotorcraft for Dragonfly/Titan?"

Braun: "For the first question, the program cost for Ingenuity is around $80 million."

Balaram: "It's difficult to separate a particular element as everything is integrated and holistic, I don't think there's an easy way to name the cost of the blades."

"With regards to the second question for Dragonfly, we've been in conversation for them, part of the invention here is to build a test program for a first of a kind system. Some of their engineers have been in consultation with us to see what makes sense."

"I'm sure as their program matures, the Ingenuity team will offer help and guidance to the extent that we can."

Glaze: "Across NASA, we learn from each other, the Dragonfly team is just getting started, it'll be very interesting to see how this capability will scale."

@cbs_spacenews: "Is the 5 meter maximum altitude a general principle or anything to do with the atmosphere? If it flips on landing, would it be possible to right it?"

Braun: "The nominal height is due to the laser altimeter, but the helicopter physically can go higher."

Balaram: "If there is an unfortunate event and the helicopter flips, there would likely be such damage to the blades that it wouldn't make sense to right it."

Inside Outer Space: "The potential of a device like this in an astronaut tool kit, what range may be possible given a successful test? How long-lived is this vehicle? Is it possible to use it in MSR?"

Braun: "As you know, we have robot assistance paired with astronauts today."

Braun: "There has been quite a bit of work done to see how humans and robots can work together, we've done pathfinding on ISS. It's not conceivable to use it for MSR. Sojourner lasted a couple months, it was a tech demo. It did not have the long life the others had."

"In much of the same way, this is a tech demo, we will meet its objectives in the month of Ingenuity - it has not been designed to last longer. There is no way I can conceive it would survive that long."

Social Media Q: "When can we expect to see results, video, or pics from Ingenuity?"

Alibay: "We'll take images as we go, but those are high volume. On flight day we'll prioritize flight first, then images or video. Within a day or two we'll be getting those images and sharing."

WDIT-TV: "What was the greatest engineering challenge in designing Ingenuity?"

Balaram: "The greatest challenge was controlling mass to make it as light as possible. Gravity helps a bit, it is 40% that of Earth, but anything heavy won't lift. That was the major challenge."

WDIT-TV: "You mentioned a weather forecast team providing a forecast on Mars, I was not aware there was a forecast, can you discuss that process and how often we get briefings?"

Balaram: "We look to weather for two reasons, energy and wind."

Grip: "There are two weather products we look to. The first is density, fortunately, on Mars, things tend to be very repeatable, we get density curves that show how density varies through a day. First it has to be within a flyable range, then we have to adjust rotor speed."

"And second, we're interested in wind. We don't use wind to plan for a flight other to make a go/no go decision. We want to have confidence that wind is within a certain range so we don't exceed certain airspeeds."

@ABC: "When you make the decisions to fly, what will audio be like? Will we get a countdown? Go/no go?"

Balaram: "Since Ingenuity operations are done a day ahead of the actual flight, we will be looking on performance leading up to the flight. We'll make a decision before."

"Theoretically, we would all be asleep, but I don't think that will be the case. It's not a real-time responsive countdown like a launch, this is a much more deliberative process that happens the day before and an assessment the day after."

@VICENews: "What other powered flights have been considered? Has there been discussion of jets or hot air balloons?"

Glaze: "There has already been a flight on another planet, non-powered. The Soviet Union conducted a balloon experiment in the atmosphere of Venus in the 80s."

"Balloons are a possible platform if you have the right density conditions. You could also have gliders, which have been considered. There is a variety of aerial vehicles that have been considered. This powered, controllable flight is an enabling capability, though."

@CosmosMagazine "How big is the landing zone? How far will the rover drive, how far is the rover driving away?"

Grip: "Currently we're looking at the van Zyl overlook, which is 60m away from dropoff. The airfield that I discussed is 10x10m. The flight zone is 90 meters."

@BBCScienceNews: "Can I just confirm you've actually driven parts of the airfield, you've gone east and now you're driving back? And the final flight, what is the likely profile of that?"

Grip: "We drove past the airfield and got great images from the corner."

"We were able to measure cm-sized rocks, and we'll drive back to drop off. And as for the flight, we've got a set of flights for the first 3, we're focusing on demonstrating basic hover, traversing, etc. And then, if we get past those, we will assess. We may try to stretch past."

Irish Television: "Someone noted this vehicle has more computer power than all previous American interplanetary missions combined - can someone address that?"

Balaram: "Yes, what we are comparing is the general-purpose computers on every spacecraft."

Balaram: "The general-purpose computer we are using on Ingenuity is 150x faster than that on Perseverance. The processor we have is comparable to a cell phone from a couple years ago. We are able to take advantage of it as a tech demo. " #MarsHelicopter

Social Media Q: "What will the test sound like?"

Grip: "It actually sounds like an airplane. What it will sound like where the rover will observe, we don't know how well that will carry."

Social Media Q: "Do the temperatures on Mars affect the battery life?"

Balaram: "We keep the batteries warm through the night to keep the heaters warm. These are commercial batteries, not specifically tailored for low-temperature. For flight, we warm them more to provide power."

Briefing now ending. As a reminder, Ingenuity's target flight date is currently no earlier than April 8 - however, the schedule may change either way.

For more information, go to:
mars.nasa.gov/mars2020
#MarsHelicopter

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