The first flight of the Mars helicopter postponed for next week Space-bar

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4-legged boxy device with wide rotor blades on the brown landscape, with a visible part of the rover.

In this artist’s concept, NASA’s ingenious Mars helicopter is on the surface of the red planet, while the Perseverance rover (partially visible on the left) is moving away. Image by NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA has once again rejected the flight date for the Mars helicopter called the Ingenuity. According to the latest status update of the agency, launched on April 12, 2021, the first experimental flight of the helicopter – originally scheduled for April 11 – will be rescheduled next week, at the earliest. Before the flight can happen, NASA must reinstall the software to fix a problem that occurred when engineers tried to change the helicopter from pre-flight to flight module. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California – the facility that manages the helicopter’s operations – is currently reviewing software updates. NASA has established four steps that the team must complete before a new flight date can be scheduled:

• Diagnose the problem and develop potential solutions
• Software development / validation and uploading
• Upload the flight software to the flight controllers
• Start ingenuity on new flight software

Additional information is available from NASA.

As for when exactly the ingenuity will take off from Mars, NASA said:

The best estimate of a targeted flight date is fluid now, but we are working to reach these milestones and we will set a flight date next week.

The ingenuity arrived on Mars on February 18 with the Perseverance rover, after making the long journey to the red planet, tucked in the rover’s belly. The little helicopter broke up with Perseverance and is now preparing to fly in the sky during a month-long test campaign. NASA will broadcast the output live, which viewers can watch on NASA TV.

If the flight of Ingeniousness is successful, it will be the first motorized and guided flight from another planet. A handful of other test flights are expected to follow on a one-month campaign aimed at proving that aerial exploration is feasible in the thin atmosphere of Mars. JPL wrote in a tweet posted early on April 8:

The process of preparing the ingenious flight was slow and cautious, in part because the 1.8-kilogram helicopter made the trip to Mars in a folded configuration. It was tucked into the rover’s body behind a protective shield. But after the rover dropped that shield and drove to the airfield, helicopter personnel ordered the device to unpack and deploy slowly. Then Perseverance had to put the ingenuity directly on the Martian surface and drive away, allowing the solar panels of the helicopter to start supporting the aircraft.

Unlocking and testing the Ingenuity blades marked the last major preparation milestones before the helicopter attempted to fly. NASA officials said they would test the blades first at 50 and then at 2,400 rpm before the helicopter tried to fly.

If the ingenuity is successful, future missions to the red planet could typically include helicopters, which could serve as scouts for the rover and collect data on its own, NASA officials said. Ingenuity will not gather data, because small rotorcraft does not carry any scientific tools. But it will document its flights with a high-resolution camera. And Perseverance will follow, too, from a safe distance. There is even a chance that the rover will record the sound of Ingenuity flights using the two microphones on board, NASA officials said.

Meanwhile, as ingenuity prepares for its flight, Perseverance looks around and sends back images. Among other activities, the car-sized rover took photos with its own tire tracks and its sophisticated scientific arm.

A new magnificent photo mosaic (below) shows the NASA Perseverance Mars rover and the ingenuity helicopter. Community scientist Seán Doran created it by sewing 62 photos taken by the rover. Doran posted on his Twitter account, @_TheSeaning. He said he put the constitutive images through a “noise, repair and upscale process” before combining them: a process he calls “laborious.” The reward is seen below.

The ingenuity took its first color photo on April 3, shortly after it was lowered to the Martian dirt by the Perseverance rover. The image shows the floor of the 28-mile (45 km) wide Jezero crater and a two-wheeled portion of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Doran told Space.com:

Focusing on the connection between Percy and Ginny was an obvious choice for this composition. It is very interesting to see new photos from another planet, but this is very special and I expect the technological demo to be a great success.

Brown earth with light bronze gravel and rover wheels partially visible.

This low-resolution view of the floor of Mars Jezero crater and a two-wheeled portion of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover was captured by the Ingenuity Mars helicopter on April 3, 2021. It is the first color photograph taken by Ingenuity on the Martian surface. Image by NASA / JPL-Caltech.

After completing the work of ingenuity, Perseverance will begin the main objectives of its own scientific mission. The six-wheeled robot will look for signs of ancient life on Mars and collect and hide dozens of samples for its future return to Earth.

NASA has chosen Jezero Crater as the landing site for the Perseverance rover with good reason. Scientists believe the area was once flooded and housed an ancient delta of the river with water more than 3.5 billion years ago. River channels overflowed the crater wall and created a lake, transporting clay minerals from its surroundings. Microbial life could have lived in the crater during one or more of these wet periods and, if so, signs of their remains could be found in the sediments on the shore of the lake or on the shore. Scientists will study how the region formed and evolved, look for signs of past life, and collect samples of rock and soil from Mars that could preserve these signs.

Bottom line: the need to update software has delayed the first flight of ingenuity, a helicopter that will explore Mars. On April 12, 2021, NASA said that ingenuity could fly next week, and when it does, it will be the first motorized and guided flight from another planet. NASA will broadcast the event live.

Read more on EarthSky: Touchdown! Perseverance successfully lands on Mars

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