Still waiting for flight images… This was just a hop test, landing at the same airfield, just 0.34 meters (1.12 feet) from where it took off from

  • @shalafi
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    41 year ago

    Are these new records coming because NASA achieved the mission goals, so now they’re pushing their luck more and more?

    • @paulhammond5155OP
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      41 year ago

      Nothing official, but I feel you are probably right. Jezero is currently enjoying the relative warmth of Summer, but every sol brings Winter closer and its very low temperatures. We lost the helicopter’s tilt meter during the last winter and the commercial (off the shelf) components were not designed for such extreme temperatures and as such may not survive the next winter. It’s a long way to winter, but they’ll have a lot more data than we have on how effective those remaining hardware / instruments are performing. So we could be seeing them setting the bar high for the next rotorcraft mission. Time will tell, watch this space :)

  • @Donjuanme
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    31 year ago

    Fucking loving this Martian helicopter.