Practical Aeronautics’ Post

NASA thinks it’s figured out why the Mars helicopter crashed A head of a full technical report that’s expected to be released in the next few weeks, engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and AeroVironment have revealed what’s believed to be the cause of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s crash on January 18th, 2024. The craft’s vision navigation system, which was designed to track textured features on the surface of Mars, was confused by a featureless stretch of rippled sandy terrain, resulting in incorrect velocity estimates that led to a hard landing. Relying on remote data, including photographs taken after the flight, the investigators believe that “navigation errors created high horizontal velocities at touchdown,” which most likely resulted in Ingenuity experiencing a “hard impact on the sand ripple’s slope,” causing it to pitch and roll.

NASA's airborne InSAR system UAVSAR imaged the landslides on the Palos Verdes peninsula, south of Los Angeles, in September and October 2024 to map the landslide motion. Interferometric SAR (InSAR) measures the surface displacements in the direction between the ground and the airplane (or satellite). The NASA Gulfstream airplane made several passes to view the landslide motion from different directions. Preliminary analysis by the NASA JPL UAVSAR and ARIA teams Alexander Handwerger of UAVSAR data is available from the NASA Disasters portal (same one where we posted the Sentinel-1 InSAR last week https://lnkd.in/gPdQm3C2) and on the ARIA-share site: https://lnkd.in/gQxsHtft The image below shows the displacements over three time intervals in September and October and shows substantial slowing of the landslide motion during that time, although the time intervals are not exactly the same. The maps are from the UAVSAR flight line T09517 that has a radar line-of-sight (LOS) looking northward, with the southward motion of the landslide shown as positive values lines are the landslides mapped by the California Geological Survey. The landslide motion extends well outside the areas mapped as active before 2023 including the Portuguese Bend Landslide, due to the acceleration of motion after the 2022-2023 rainy season. The rapid motion has been too fast for InSAR with Sentinel-1 since mid-2023. #NASA #UAVSAR #NASAJPL #InSAR #PalosVerdes

Fasten Your Seatbelts for Supersonic Travel Image: NASA and Lockheed Martin publicly unveil the X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft at a ceremony in Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land, currently banned in the United States, by making sonic booms quieter. Credit: NASA/Steve Freeman NASA fires up super-quiet supersonic X-59 aircraft https://lnkd.in/g8ib_vKi By Iain Thomson NASA is pushing boundaries in air travel with its new supersonic aircraft, aiming to make the skies quieter while still reaching impressive speeds. The aircraft recently fired up its engines for the first time, marking a significant milestone in its development. This project signals a promising future for faster, less disruptive air travel, which could revolutionize how we think about flying. As we await further tests, the excitement builds around the potential for a new era of aviation that combines speed with reduced noise. This innovation could change the game for both commercial and private flights, inviting a whole new generation of travellers to experience the skies like never before. #WesternCanadaReason #wecanreason #criticalthinking #skeptics #science #NASA #Supersonic

X-59 Afterburner tests done ! NASA has successfully completed the first maximum afterburner engine run test on its X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft on Dec. 12. The ground test, conducted at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, marks a significant milestone as the X-59 team progresses toward flight. Previous post:https://lnkd.in/dJzhcDD6 #aircraft

Twenty years. Sometimes that seems like a long stretch. Other times, it is the figural blink of an eye. Twenty years ago today, NASA executed the third and final launch of the X-43A Hyper-X test vehicle. Fueled by hydrogen, the scramjet engine accelerated the free-flyer to Mach 9.68. The fastest air breathing vehicle. Ever. In the intervening decades, the lessons-learned in 2004 have been critical to the success of many hypersonic designs. For one thing, most of the newer vehicles are far more than "just" hypersonic test articles. But nothing has yet matched that speed record. Yet. https://lnkd.in/eG3UfmAs

On this day in 1903, brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, successfully flew the first airplane. It began with 12 seconds that took humanity to the skies for the very first time. 66 years later, humanity watched a man walk on the Moon for the first time. In the 1500s, genius Leonardo daVinci could only use his imagination about any concept of flight, but he did, and even wrote "the Codex on the Flight of Birds" pertaining to all things flight, from gravity, to the mechanical machinery needed (before machines were even really invented). Between the first flight to the skies by the Wright brothers and the space era of the 1960s, in 1926, Robert Goddard successfully launched the first liquid-fueled, liquid-propelled rocket. Humanity has always wanted to go to the skies, and beyond, to the stars. We currently are beginning to experience the latter. What a great time it is to be alive!! If only Leonardo could see what humanity has achieved. ** On March 2026, a centennial celebration for Goddard's first successful modern rocket launch will take place, follow The Goddard Project to learn more. Or view the flipping page link in first comment to learn what they're all about. #spaceflight #aerospace #airandspace #spaceera #flight #Innovation #futurism

We just published a paper in Acta Astronautica relating to the Dragonfly mission (a NASA sponsored rotorcraft-lander mission led by Johns Hopkins APL). The work focuses on the identification of stronger-than expected, rotor-body interactions involved on the landers descent into the atmosphere of Titan (Saturn's largest moon). The effort shows how CFD can be utilized to identify out-of-this world flight complications, and how they can be addressed ahead of time using high-fidelity models. Congrats to all the authors: Corey Zucker, Wayne Farrell, PhD, Luis Amaya, Timothy McGee, Brett Shapiro, and Jackson Asiatico. If interested, see the article here: https://lnkd.in/e8H2msrE

I am so excited to share that NASA Ames, Langley and Glenn team partnered with AirSpace Integration, Overwatch Aero and Metis Technology Solutions completed shake down tests of NASA new Portable Aispace Management (PAM) Systems for future applications in aerial suppression during wildfire including second shift. Our team was at the Monterey Bay Academy at La Selva beach doing functional checks of six PAM systems, two radio communication sets and four unmanned aerial systems with 12 scenarios. We will have lesson learned which will help us in getting ready for the flight evaluation of our first Technical Capability Level -1 in spring 2025 - Advanced Capability for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) Project. #NASA #innovation, #aeronautics@Ames

Visualization of the air flow field around the nose landing gear of a Boeing 777 Video credit: NASA #Airflow #NoseLandingGear #Boeing777 #Aerodynamics #CFD #AircraftDesign #FlowVisualization #AviationEngineering #Turbulence #AircraftAerodynamics

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab & AeroVironment offer insights on #IngenuityHelicopter’s final flight in the first-ever aircraft accident investigation on another world. Findings may revolutionize future Mars missions. #MarsHelicopter #SpaceExploration https://lnkd.in/ePVMGZ2g