Technical issues: NASA postpones helicopter flight to Mars

Sunday, April 11, 2021

Technical issues
NASA postpones helicopter flight to Mars

The mini helicopter “Ingenuity” was scheduled to take off on its first flight over Mars today. But technical issues force NASA to postpone the test.

Due to technical problems, the US space agency NASA postponed the first helicopter flight to another planet. NASA has tweeted that the small helicopter “Ingenuity”, which landed on the rover “Perseverance” on Mars in February, will now depart quickly on April 14th. Earlier, today was given as the initial start date for Sunday.

The helicopter is set to open the age of the plane on the red planet. The high-speed test of the rotors was canceled on Friday due to problems with adding the aircraft system to the aircraft mode, NASA said. The helicopter is secure and transmits sound and data. The helicopter team is testing the readings to diagnose and understand the problem. The high-speed test is then repeated.

The 1.8 kilogram “ingenuity” (in German: ingenuity) rises to an altitude of about three meters in its first test flight, orbits for thirty seconds, and then lands again on the surface of Mars. This will be the first flight of an aircraft on another planet. The “ingenuity” powered by lithium ion batteries could make several more flight attempts a month.

The helicopter must withstand extreme conditions: Mars will be cold at night up to minus 90 degrees Celsius, the planet’s gravitational force will be low and the atmosphere will be very thin. The mini-helicopter was placed in the belly of “perseverance” at the end of February – after 203 days of flight and 472 million kilometers of perfection – with a dangerous maneuver known as the “Jesero crater” on dry Mars Lake. “Perseverance” means exploring this lake, which is about 45 kilometers in diameter, over the next two years.