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 on Saturday.
Ingenuity’s trip, which is to be the first-ever powered, controlled flight on another planet, was set for yesterday, but is now on hold until at least Wednesday. A high-speed test of the 1.8kg helicopter’s rotors on Friday ended earlier than expected due to an alert of a potential issue.
“The helicopter team is reviewing telemetry to diagnose and understand the issue,” NASA said in a statement. “Following that, they will reschedule the full-speed test.”
Photo: AFP / NASA / JPL-Caltech / Handout
NASA said the copter is “safe and healthy,” and had sent information back to Earth.
Initially the plan for yesterday was to have Ingenuity fly for 30 seconds to take a picture of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on Mars on Feb. 18 with the helicopter attached to its underside.
NASA has called the unprecedented helicopter operation highly risky, but said it could reap invaluable data about the conditions on Mars.
The flight is a true challenge because the air on Mars is so thin — less than 1 percent of the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere. This means Ingenuity must spin its rotor blades much faster than a helicopter needs to do on Earth to fly.
After the flight, Ingenuity is to send Perseverance technical data on what it has done, and that information would be transmitted back to Earth. This would include a black-and-white photograph of the Martian surface that Ingenuity is programmed to snap while flying.
A 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.
If the flight is a success, NASA plans another no more than four days later. It plans as many as five altogether, each successively more difficult, over the course of a month.
NASA hopes to make the helicopter rise 5m and then move laterally.
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