NASA helicopter on Mars suffers “anomaly”, delaying its 14th flight

This story is part of Welcome to mars, our series exploring the red planet.

NASA’s outperforming Mars helicopter Ingenuity takes a short hiatus before attempting its next flight. The rotorcraft had been scheduled for a brief hover exercise on September 18. “The flight turned out to be uneventful, as Ingenuity decided not to take off,” Jaakko Karras, deputy chief of operations, said in a status update this week.

Ingenuity’s failure to steal was a good thing. The helicopter detected an anomaly in two flight control servomotors while performing a routine pre-check of its systems.

The flight cancellation means that Ingenuity will not attempt to take off again until after mid-October. The the reason for the prolonged delay is the solar conjunction of Mars, a time when Earth and Mars are face to face with the sun in between. This can cause communication problems between Earth and our robotic explorers on and around the Red Planet. NASA will suspend sending orders between October 2 and October 16.

Ingenuity is facing a tough time on Mars as the seasons change, and it needs to make some adjustments in the way it flies, thanks to a decrease in atmospheric density. The rotorcraft passed a high speed spin test to see if it will be able to compensate for the changes, and that test went very well. The next step was to try a hover, that is, when the anomaly occurred.

The Ingenuity team is performing troubleshooting. Karras suggested that the moving parts could show signs of wear since the rotorcraft flew many more times than originally intended, but there are several possible explanations for the anomaly.

Ingenuity has already overcome a technical problem and thrived in the harsh conditions on Mars. Karras said: “We have a number of tools available to work on the anomaly and we are optimistic that we will overcome it and resume flight soon.”