NASA Ingenuity: First Martian controlled helicopter flight now scheduled for Monday, April 19
After last week’s postponed flight of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity, NASA is now shooting to conduct that first controlled flight on Monday, April 19, at approximately 3:30 a.m. Nicknamed “Ginny,” the helicopter specifically designed for the lighter and much thinner Martian atmosphere will eventually be scouting the Red Planet’s landscape to seek out areas of interest for future investigation and help prepare navigational routes for the Mars’ Rovers. But first, NASA needs to successfully test the rotorcraft’s operations.
The original flight date that was scheduled for April 11 got postponed because NASA engineers needed to re-work some preflight checks and find a solution to a command sequence issue after Ingenuity’s spinning blades abruptly stopped during the chopper’s initial experimental flight test.
In an April 9 test, the helicopter’s blades were supposed to spin at full speed while its legs remained planted on the Martian surface. They were expected to spin in opposite direction at 2,500 rotations per minute, about eight times faster than helicopters on Earth.
NASA said a “watchdog” timer expired during the test. This is a trigger meant to alert engineers to potential problems with the helicopter. ~ per Business Insider
Following that first attempt, NASA JPL updated the world with the following Tweet:
Data from Monday’s first flight will reach Earth a few hours following the autonomous flight. A livestream will begin at 6:15 a.m. EDT (3:15 a.m. PDT), as the helicopter team prepares to receive the data downlink in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Watch on NASA Television, the agency app, website, and social media platforms, including YouTube and Facebook.
(Source: NASA)
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today / Follow Richard on Facebook and Twitter
