The helicopter sent data back to Earth’s mission teams late on Friday evening, forcing NASA to reschedule its maiden flight. The team reports that the helicopter remains safe and healthy and is sharing all data.
Ingenuity conducted a high-speed test of its rotors on Friday. During this test, the command sequence ended prematurely due to an expired watchdog timer.
This early end of the test occurred when the helicopter attempted to move the flight computer from preflight to flight mode.
The timer monitors the order sequence and if problems arise, it alerts the system and maintains the safety of the helicopter by shutting down until the problem can be resolved.
In this case, the timer did exactly what it was supposed to do, according to the agency.
Meanwhile, Earth’s helicopter team is reviewing the data so they can pinpoint the problem that ended the test. After this review, the high-speed test of the helicopter’s rotors will be rescheduled.
When Ingenuity can first fly to Mars, the 4-pound helicopter will fly for about 40 seconds in total. The helicopter will spin its two 4-foot blades, soar 10 feet (3 meters) in the air, hover, make a turn, take a photo, and land on Mars again.
If this first flight is successful, Ingenuity will be able to fly four more times this month.
Now it has to fly autonomously through the thin atmosphere of Mars, without the help of its teams on Earth. Radio signals take 15 minutes and 27 seconds to bridge the current gap between Earth and Mars, which spans 173 million miles (278.4 million kilometers).
The Perseverance rover, which will help the helicopter and its Earth mission team communicate with each other, will receive flight instructions from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The rover then forwards those plans to the helicopter. Perseverance is parked at a vantage point 65 meters away from the helicopter so it can safely view the flight and take photos and videos.