Sixth Ingenuity flight on Mars malfunctions

The American Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA reported on how the sixth Ingenuity helicopter flight on the Red Planet went.

This time, the singing went through with technical failures, but in general, NASA experts are pleased with how Ingenuity completed the task and dealt with the unforeseen circumstances that arose.

Ingenuity’s sixth combat mission took place on May 22, 2021. He was supposed to expand the range of flight and demonstrate the capabilities of aerial photography, receiving stereo images of the desired area in the west.

Ingenuity had to climb 10 meters before moving 150 meters southwest at 4 meters per second. Next, he was supposed to move 15 meters south, taking pictures in a westerly direction, then fly another 50 meters to the northeast and land.

The first 150-meter segment of the flight went “without a hitch.” But then something happened: Ingenuity began to change speed and sway. This behavior persisted throughout the flight. Prior to a safe landing, on-board sensors showed that the device was tilted by more than 20 degrees, as well as surges in energy consumption. As a result, the device managed to land 5 m from the target location.

As the experts were able to establish, after about 54 seconds of flight, a failure occurred and the camera timer began to show the wrong time, which led to further failures in the navigation system, constant “correction” of information estimates in the control algorithm to account for phantom errors.

Recall that the helicopter Ingenuity Ingenuity) was delivered to Mars attached to the bottom of the Perseverance rover, which landed in Jezero crater on February 18, 2021. Ingenuity’s main objectives are to demonstrate technology and conduct the first flights to Mars. After the first successful flights of Ingenuity, NASA decided to expand its mission and test a helicopter for reconnaissance and escort of the rover.