NASA has given an anxious audience a new date for the first controlled flight of the Ingenuity helicopter to Mars: Monday, April 19th. This would be the third time that the Ingenuity flight has been rescheduled so far and, with some luck, could be the real deal.
Saturday, the announces space agency this craft, its small 4-pound (1.8 kg) helicopter, would attempt to make its first flight on Monday at approximately 3:30 am ET. The new date follows two attempts that were delayed due to pre-control checks and a script problem that occurred during a high-speed centrifugation test of its rotors on April 9th. That day, the test ended early due to the expiration of the “watchdog” timer as it attempted to switch the flight computer from pre-flight mode, NASA explained.
The wit monitoring timer monitors the helicopter script and alerts the system in the event of possible problems. If there is a problem, the monitoring timer “helps the system stay safe” by not continuing. Performing the rotation test is an important milestone on the way to the flight of Ingenuity.
The Ingenuity flight crew had been working on a solution to this problem in recent days. One was to add some commands to the helicopter’s flight sequence, while the other was to modify and reinstall the helicopter. flight control software. Friday, wit performed successfully the full-speed centrifugation test he had failed to perform on April 9th.
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To perform the turn test, the team used the flight sequence solution. The approach was extensively tested on both Earth and Mars, the flight crew said in a status update Friday and was held without jeopardizing the safety of the device, which cost $ 80 million and took years to develop. However, the team stated that it was still undecided on what solution to adopt for the first flight of Ingenuity.
“Software sharing is a direct solution to a known problem,” the team wrote. “But it will take a little longer to run and it is a software modification that has remained stable and unchanged for almost two years. Validation and testing have taken several days and the transfer and upload of these new files will take a few more ”.
In the state update, the team said it would hold a meeting on Friday to discuss the two solutions and determine which would adopt for the first flight of Ingenuity. On Friday, the team did not guarantee it would agree on a new flight date, however, judging by NASA’s announcement most likely yes.
The announcement did not reveal what solution the team had adopted in the end, although we will surely find out in the coming days.
If the craft is successful, it will be the first time any space agency has conducted a motorized controlled flight to another planet. The small helicopter will attempt to make up to five test flights within a window of 30 Martian suns, or 31 Earth days. Using his camera down, he will take photos during the test flight, and the team is expected to receive grenade black and white images at first and higher resolution images later.
During a previous press conference On the Ingenuity flight, NASA officials said the Perseverance rover, which was carrying Ingenuity to Mars by the belly, will also try to capture images of the first flight of its helicopter friend.
NASA will begin organizing a live broadcast at 6:15 am ET on Monday, which is when the team will receive data from Ingenenuity and find out if its first flight was successful. You can watch the live play at YouTube below, as well as at NASA application, website, i Facebook page. In addition, if the flight takes place, NASA will hold an information session after 2 p.m. ET.