“Survived an anomaly.” Ingenuity drone crashes on Mars flight

The NASA Ingenuity reconnaissance helicopter experienced an anomaly during the sixth flight to Mars – a failure of the navigation system. This is reported by NASA Science.

It was planned that Ingenuity will rise to a height of 10 meters, fly 150 meters southwest at a speed of 4 m / s, then, taking photographs of the area, move 15 meters south, 50 meters northeast and land.

NASA writes that there were no problems for the first 150 meters, but then Ingenuity began to adjust the speed and swing until the end of the flight. Before landing, he deviated in roll and pitch by more than 20 degrees.

As the agency found out, 54 seconds after takeoff, there was a failure in the pipeline of images transmitted by the navigation camera.

This glitch led to the loss of one navigation image and to the fact that all subsequent images were with inaccurate time stamps, the scientists explain. As a result, the navigation algorithm worked on the basis of incorrect data.

Despite this anomaly, Ingenuity was able to continue flying and land safely within about five meters of its intended landing site, NASA noted. The agency also showed an animation of the last 65 meters of the drone’s flight and a photo it took.

See also: Watch a helicopter flight on Mars in 3D: a video with the effect of presence has appeared

Just keep flying #MarsHelicopter completed its 6th flight. Despite unexpected motion from an image processing issue, Ingenuity muscled through the final ~65 meters of its 215-meter journey, landed safely & is ready to fly again. The chief pilot explains https://t.co/533hn7qixk pic.twitter.com/IHkkjXaHDd

– NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) May 27, 2021