NASA has eagerly set a new date for the first controlled flight of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars: Monday, April 19. This would be the third time Ingenuity’s flight has been rescheduled to date, and with luck, it could be the real deal.
On Saturdays, the space agency announced that Ingenuity, its little 1.8kg (4lb) helicopter, would attempt to make its maiden flight on Monday at about 3:30 a.m. ET. The new date follows two attempts that were delayed due to preflight checks and a command sequence issue that occurred during a high speed spin test of its rotors on April 9. That day, the test ended early due to the expiration of a “watchdog” timer while attempting to switch the flight computer from pre-flight to flight mode, NASA explained.
Ingenuity’s watchdog timer monitors the helicopter’s command sequence and alerts the system in case of potential problems. If there is a problem, the watchdog timer “helps keep the system safe” by not proceeding. Completing the spin test is an important milestone on Ingenuity’s path to flight.
Ingenuity’s flight team had been working on a solution on this problem in the past few days. One involved adding a few commands to the helicopter’s flight sequence, while the other involved an adaptation and reinstallation of the helicopter. flight control softwareFriday, Ingenuity successfully conducted the full speed spin test that he could not have completed on April 9.
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To run the spin test, the team used the flight sequence solution. The approach has been extensively tested on both Earth and Mars, the flight team said in one status update on Friday, and was performed without compromising the security of Ingenuity, which cost $ 80 million and took years to develop. However, the team confirmed that it still hadn’t decided which solution to use for Ingenuity’s maiden flight.
“Switching software is a simple solution to a known problem,” the team wrote. “But it takes a little longer to perform, and it’s an adaptation to software that’s been stable and unchanged for nearly two years. Validation and testing took a few days, and the transfer and loading of these new files will take a few more days. ”
In the status update, the team said it would have a meeting on Friday to analyze both solutions and determine which one it would be would adopt for Ingenuity’s maiden flight. The team could not guarantee that this was the case on Friday would agree on a new flight date, but judging by NASA’s announcement, it very likely.
The announcement did not reveal what solution the team ultimately adopted, although we’ll be sure to find out in the coming days.
If Ingenuity succeeds, it will be the first time for a space agency to conduct a powered controlled flight on another planet. The small helicopter will attempt to make up to five test flights within a time frame of 30 Martian sols, or 31 Earth days. Using the downward-facing camera, it takes photos during the test flight, with the team expected to receive grainy black-and-white images first and higher-resolution images later.
During a previous press conference During Ingenuity’s flight, NASA officials said the Perseverance rover, carrying Ingenuity on its stomach to Mars, will also attempt to capture photos of its helicopter friend’s first flight.
NASA will begin hosting a live stream Monday at 6:15 a.m. ET, after which the team will receive data from Ingenuity and see if the first flight was successful. You can watch the live stream on YouTube below, as well as on NASA’s app website, and Facebook pageIf the flight does occur, NASA will hold a post-flight briefing at 2 p.m. ET.