Lifeboat Foundation

NASA has delayed the first flight of its Ingenuity Mars helicopter after a crucial test-spin of the drone’s rotor blades abruptly stopped.

This was the last major test to make sure the helicopter would be ready for its first flight, which was originally scheduled for early Monday. Now NASA has delayed the historic liftoff — which would mark the first powered, controlled flight on another planet — to Wednesday.

For the test on Friday, Ingenuity was supposed to spin its blades at full speed while on the ground. The two pairs of blades should have spun in opposite directions at more than 2500 rotations per minute — about eight times faster than an Earth helicopter. On flight day, they’ll need that speed to lift the 4-pound drone into the thin Martian atmosphere. That air has just 1% the density of Earth’s atmosphere, making Ingenuity’s task the equivalent of flying three times higher than the peak of Mount Everest.

Humanity’s first helicopter on Mars has been cleared for a historic takeoff.

Ingenuity will take to the skies above Jezero Crater Sunday (April 11) on a 40-second flight — roughly four times longer than the Wright brothers’ first flight on Earth over 117 years ago. The first data, successful or not, should flow back to Earth on Monday (April 12) around 3:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT).

Although universal fault-tolerant quantum computers – with millions of physical quantum bits (or qubits) – may be a decade or two away, quantum computing research continues apace. It has been hypothesized that quantum computers will one day revolutionize information processing across a host of military and civilian applications from pharmaceuticals discovery, to advanced batteries, to machine learning, to cryptography. A key missing element in the race toward fault-tolerant quantum systems, however, is meaningful metrics to quantify how useful or transformative large quantum computers will actually be once they exist.

To provide standards against which to measure quantum computing progress and drive current research toward specific goals, DARPA announced its Quantum Benchmarking program. Its aim is to re-invent key quantum computing metrics, make those metrics testable, and estimate the required quantum and classical resources needed to reach critical performance thresholds.

“It’s really about developing quantum computing yardsticks that can accurately measure what’s important to focus on in the race toward large, fault-tolerant quantum computers,” said Joe Altepeter, program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. “Building a useful quantum computer is really hard, and it’s important to make sure we’re using the right metrics to guide our progress towards that goal. If building a useful quantum computer is like building the first rocket to the moon, we want to make sure we’re not quantifying progress toward that goal by measuring how high our planes can fly.”

On April 9, 2021 NASA demonstrated video footage on Mars Helicopter Ingenuity during rotor blades spinning test and HI-RES first image from Ingenuity. Launch day of Ingenuity Perseverance Mars Rover sent images of Ingenuity Helicopter’s rotor blades spin up within motor test. Ingenuity is going to fly on Mars on April 11–12. Rotor blades spinned up and are unlocked and helicopter is going to make high-rpm test. So next milestone is to spin up rotor blades full-speed for the first time on Mars (to the planned flight speed of ~2400 RPM) while still on the surface. Flight can’t happen too late in the Martian day either. A long flight late in the afternoon could deplete the battery without giving the Sun a chance to recharge it. You don’t want to go into that cold Martian night without a good bit of energy in the battery!

Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Continue reading “Perseverance captured video of Ingenuity Mars Helicopter rotor blades spinning test” »

A team of theoretical physicists working with Microsoft today published an amazing pre-print research paper describing the universe as a self-learning system of evolutionary laws.

In other words: We live inside a computer that learns.

The big idea: Bostrom’s Simulation Argument has been a hot topic in science circles lately. We published “What if you’re living in a simulation, but there’s no computer” recently to posit a different theory, but Microsoft’s pulled a cosmic “hold my beer” with this paper.

Push that envelope, Molly Cobb.

NASA’s chief astronaut Molly Cobb pushes the envelope on their jet aircraft in the new episode of “For All Mankind,” airing Friday (April 9).

The three-year arrangement will allow allies to begin testing M-Code-ready equipment.

The rotor blades on the Ingenuity helicopter were unlocked and the Perseverance rover’s arm was run through some checks in imagery acquired by NASA from Mars on April 8, 2021. Also, Perseverance captured a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter in April 6 imagery. Full Story: https://www.space.com/mars-helicopter-ingenuity-unlocks-rotor-blades.

Credit: Space.com | imagery courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS | produced & edited by Steve Spaleta (http://www.twitter.com/stevespaleta)

Onboard, Arctic Owl is equipped with all the requisite gear for oceanic expeditions. She features a helideck and an 850-square-foot hangar to accommodate your choppers. She also sports garages port and starboard that can hold a U-Boat Worx NEMO submarine, plus other toys, tenders and equipment. These smaller vessels can be deployed via her two cranes at the aft.

The spacious vessel can sleep up to 10 guests across six staterooms, including two master cabins with panoramic views. There is also space for six crew. Elsewhere, Arctic Owl features a large swimming pool and lounge at the bow, along with a spa on the flybridge.

Needless to say, Arctic Owl can certainly soar. She’s powered by twin Cummins hybrid diesel-electric engines that propel her to a top speed of 18 knots and a cruising speed of 16 knots. She also offers an impressive transatlantic range of 6000 nautical miles—that’s New York to the North Pole and back.