Ingenuity is now being sent out to scout the way for Perseverance, using its high-resolution colour camera. It landed, safe and sound, and the problem was resolved. Its sixth flight brought some excitement.Īfter being knocked dangerously off-balance by a malfunction affecting the photos taken in flight to help it stabilise, the tiny craft was able to recover. In May, Ingenuity flew its first one-way mission, landing outside the relatively flat "airfield" that had been carefully selected as its initial home.īut not all has gone smoothly. In all, it has covered a distance of 2.5km. Since then, Ingenuity has flown as high as 12 metres, and its last flight lasted two minutes and 49 seconds. (and) got all the information we had hoped to get," said Mr Ravich, who works for Nasa's famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which developed the helicopter. "I think by flight three we had actually accomplished all of our engineering goals. A piece of fabric from that plane has been tucked inside Ingenuity in honor of that feat."We've actually been able to handle winds greater than we had expected," Mr Ravich told AFP. The mission is be the equivalent on Mars of the first powered flight on Earth - by the Wright brothers in 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. NASA hopes to make the helicopter rise five meters (16 feet) and then move laterally. It plans as many as five altogether, each successively more difficult, over the course of a month. If the flight is a success, NASA plans another no more than four days later. This will include a black and white photo of the Martian surface that Ingenuity is programmed to snap while flying.Ī day later, once its batteries have charged up again, Ingenuity is to transmit another photo - in color, of the Martian horizon, taken with a different camera. This means Ingenuity must spin its rotor blades much faster than a helicopter needs to do on Earth in order to fly.Īfter the flight, Ingenuity will send Perseverance technical data on what it has done, and that information will be transmitted back to Earth. The flight is a true challenge because the air on Mars is so thin - less than one percent of the pressure of Earth's atmosphere. NASA calls the unprecedented helicopter operation highly risky, but says it could reap invaluable data about the conditions on Mars. Initially the plan for Sunday was to have Ingenuity fly for 30 seconds to take a picture of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on Mars on February 18 with the helicopter attached to its underside. NASA noted the copter is "safe and healthy" and had sent information back to Earth. ![]() "Following that, they will reschedule the full-speed test." "The helicopter team is reviewing telemetry to diagnose and understand the issue," NASA said in a statement. ![]() Ingenuity's trip, which is to be the first-ever powered, controlled flight on another planet, was set for Sunday but is now on hold until at least April 14.Ī high-speed test of the four-pound (1.8 kilogram) helicopter's rotors on Friday ended earlier than expected due to an alert of a potential issue. WASHINGTON - NASA has delayed by at least several days the first flight of its mini-helicopter on Mars after a possible tech issue emerged while testing its rotors, the US space agency said Saturday. NASA has delayed the Mars flight of its Ingenuity helicopter
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