Ingenuity’s sixth flight didn’t go as planned. Return to his adventures on May 22.
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[EN VIDÉO] Speed’s historic flight to Mars Monday 19 April 2021 will be remembered as the day Ingenuity, a controlled and motorized machine, flew for the first time into the atmosphere of a planet other than our own. March. And a video taken by Perseverance Rover, stationed about 65 yards away, captures the moment. We found NASA’s Mars helicopter taking off about 3 meters above the ground from the red planet before landing about thirty seconds later. © Nasa, JPL-Caltech, ASU, MSSS
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On May 22, the number was 91e the son of send to Mars perseverance. Understand 91eMarch Day since the NASA orbiter landed on the Red Planet. But it was mostly the sixth flight dayhelicopter Vernuf. And after that unusual, that day things got bad.
The flight plan is clear. Ambitious, but clear. Ingenuity must climb to a height of 10 meters and fly 150 meters to the southwest, at a speed of 4 m/s. Then he has to go 15 meters to the south while taking the west. Eventually he had to fly 50 meters to the northeast before landing. But at the end of the first phase, telemetry showed that the Mars helicopter was starting to swing back and forth. Abnormal behavior that is maintained for the remainder of the flight.
This footage was taken on May 22, 2021 by Ingenuity’s navigation camera. The Mars helicopter was trapped during its sixth flight in a wobbling motion that could have led to its loss. The results of the navigation camera images are lost in the turn of the electronic system. © Nasa, JPL-Caltech
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Ingenuity is saved by sturdiness
Today, NASA engineers tell us why. They remind us that movementIngenuity controlled by a so -called system “Built-in inertial unit” (IMU). It measures the acceleration and rotation of the aircraft to estimate its position, speed and altitude. It’s here navigation camera helicopter which ensures the accuracy of this data in the long run. By taking no less than 30 photos per second. The photo used by the algorithm to correct the IMU estimate.
On May 22, 2021, about 54 seconds after Ingenuity of the red planet, one of the images from the navigation camera is missing. Movetimestamp of all the following images. Enough to make the algorithm lose its mind, over and over “Right” IMU estimates to compensate for shadow errors. Fortunately, NASA engineers have designed a helicopter with enough headroom to tolerate faults without becoming unstable. So he could continue his flight without actually getting lost. And the plane was able to land undamaged – just five meters from where it was intended – because the final phase of the flight did not rely on navigation cameras. The vulnerabilities exposed by this incident still need to be fixed to prevent future disappointments.
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