Washington:
NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter missed its fourth scheduled flight on Thursday, with the space agency blaming a computer software glitch and vowing to attempt once again the next day.
“The helicopter is safe and in good health,” mentioned a statement, adding the rotorcraft had failed to transition to “flight mode.”
The group plans to try the flight when more on Friday at 10:46 am Eastern Time (1446 GMT) with information anticipated back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory about 3 hours later.
Aim higher, and fly, fly once again. The #MarsHelicopter‘s ambitious fourth flight did not get off the ground, but the group is assessing the information and will aim to attempt once again quickly. We’ll hold you posted. https://t.co/TNCdXWcKWEpic.twitter.com/HDaF0fAILs
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) April 29, 2021
The computer software problem is believed to be the exact same one that delayed Ingenuity’s maiden voyage, the 1st powered flight on an additional planet. Initially scheduled for April 11, the historic feat occurred April 19.
The cause was a glitch connected with the aircraft’s “watchdog timer,” which alerts Ingenuity to possible troubles and pauses its processes if it thinks it has detected an error.
Engineers made a coding tweak that permitted Ingenuity to overcome the difficulty and transition to flight mode appropriately — but estimated there was a 15 % possibility it would not work on every single flight try.
“Today’s delay is in line with that expectation and does not prevent future flight,” NASA mentioned.
Since reaching Mars in February beneath the belly of the Perseverance rover, the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) helicopter has made 3 profitable flights.
The last, which took spot Sunday, saw it move quicker and additional than ever just before, with a peak speed of 6.6 feet (two meters) per second. It covered 64 feet (50 meters) of distance.
Ingenuity’s flights are difficult since of circumstances vastly distinctive from Earth’s — foremost amongst them a rarefied atmosphere that has much less than one % the density of our personal and signifies it has to spin its rotors at 2,400 revolutions per minute.
The Ingenuity technologies demonstration will finish in early May to permit the Perseverance rover to return to its key process: browsing for indicators of previous microbial life on Mars.
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