On its bold sixth flight, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity encountered an airborne navigational flaw that triggered it to tip backwards and forwards whereas making unplanned pace modifications, however the small drone-like car was nonetheless capable of land safely, based on the chiefs of mission Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena mentioned at the moment.
The sixth flight of the historic helicopter – the primary to carry out a managed flight on one other world – was deliberate as considered one of its most daring excursions thus far. The helicopter was programmed to journey greater than 700 ft in complete and demonstrated its aerial images expertise by taking stereo pictures of the terrain to the west whereas in flight after which touchdown on a brand new touchdown pad.
In direction of the top of the helicopter’s first 492-foot flight southwest, Ingenuity abruptly “started to regulate its pace and tilt backwards and forwards in an oscillating sample,” based on a flight abstract by Havard Grip, the helicopter’s chief pilot at JPL.
“This conduct continued for the remainder of the flight,” wrote Grip. “Earlier than the secure touchdown, on-board sensors indicated that the rotorcraft was experiencing roll and pitch deflections of greater than 20 levels, giant management inputs and peaks in energy consumption.”
In the long run, Ingenuity landed safely and landed inside about 16 ft of its initially supposed touchdown website.
In line with Grip, the glitch occurred about 54 seconds after the flight when a relentless stream of digicam pictures – captured at round 30 frames per second and fed into the helicopter’s navigation system – was interrupted.
Just one image was misplaced because of the mistake. And whereas this looks as if a minor situation, it resulted in all subsequent pictures having inaccurate timestamps, which the helicopter’s navigation system makes use of to find out its location, pace, and place.
Grip mentioned the helicopter was finally capable of full its flight because of a “margin of stability” constructed into the rotorcraft to make sure that it could possibly “tolerate vital errors with out changing into unstable, together with errors in timing”.
The helicopter can also be appropriate for touchdown on the floor of Mars with out
Wants the navigation cameras in order that the delayed imaging doesn’t have an effect on his
Capacity to sit down down safely.
“Total, Flight Six with Ingenuity ended safely on the bottom as a result of quite a lot of subsystems – the rotor system, the actuators and the propulsion system – responded to the elevated calls for to maintain the helicopter flying,” wrote Grip.
“Ingenuity actually struggled by means of the scenario and whereas the flight uncovered a timing vulnerability that must be addressed, it additionally confirmed the robustness of the system in a number of methods.”
Ingenuity was carried to the Crimson Planet connected to the stomach of the Perseverance rover that landed on Mars in February. The helicopter is solely an illustration undertaking and doesn’t carry any scientific gear. JPL officers proceed to check its expertise to gauge the potential of such ships for future missions and supply a option to discover extra of the planet’s floor than with land-based rovers.
