NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter efficiently accomplished its 54th flight on Aug. 3, the primary flight for the reason that helicopter lower its July 22 flight quick. The 25-second up-and-down hop offered knowledge that might assist the Ingenuity crew decide why its 53rd flight ended early.
Flight 53 was deliberate as a 136-second scouting flight devoted to gathering imagery of the planet’s floor for the Perseverance Mars rover science crew. The sophisticated flight profile included flying north 666 toes (203 meters) at an altitude of 16 toes (5 meters) and a velocity of 5.6 mph (2.5 meters per second), then descending vertically to eight toes (2.5 meters), the place it will hover and procure imagery of a rocky outcrop. Ingenuity would then climb straight as much as 33 toes (10 meters) to permit its hazard divert system to provoke earlier than descending vertically to the touch down.
As a substitute, the helicopter executed the primary half of its autonomous journey, flying north at an altitude of 16 toes (5 meters) for 466 toes (142 meters). Then a flight-contingency program was triggered, and Ingenuity robotically landed. The total flight time was 74 seconds.
“Because the very first flight we have now included a program known as ‘LAND_NOW’ that was designed to place the helicopter on the floor as quickly as attainable if anybody of some dozen off-nominal situations was encountered,” mentioned Teddy Tzanetos, crew lead emeritus for Ingenuity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Throughout Flight 53, we encountered certainly one of these, and the helicopter labored as deliberate and executed a direct touchdown.”
The Ingenuity crew is assured that the early touchdown was triggered when picture frames from the helicopter’s navigation digital camera did not sync up as anticipated with knowledge from the rotorcraft’s inertial measurement unit. The unit measures Ingenuity’s acceleration and rotational charges—knowledge that makes it attainable to estimate the place the helicopter is, how briskly it’s shifting, and the way it’s oriented in space.
This was not the primary event on which picture frames have been dropped by the helicopter’s Navcam throughout a flight. Again on Could 22, 2021, a number of picture frames have been dropped, leading to extreme pitching and rolling close to the tip of Flight 6.
After Flight 6, the crew up to date the flight software program to assist mitigate the influence of dropped pictures, and the repair labored nicely for the following 46 flights. Nevertheless, on Flight 53 the amount of dropped navigation pictures exceeded what the software program patch permits.
“Whereas we hoped to by no means set off a LAND_NOW, this flight is a precious case research that can profit future plane working on different worlds,” mentioned Tzanetos. “The crew is working to higher perceive what occurred in Flight 53, and with Flight 54’s success we’re assured that our child is able to preserve hovering forward on Mars.”
Quotation:
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter flies once more after unscheduled touchdown (2023, August 8)
retrieved 8 August 2023
from https://phys.org/information/2023-08-nasa-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-flies.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Aside from any truthful dealing for the aim of personal research or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is offered for data functions solely.