Mars Helicopter Ingenuity is now set for its first flight on Monday after several hectic days spent by NASA/JPL engineers trying to perform a high-speed spin test that finally worked on Friday.
The first flight attempt will happen at 3:31 a.m. EDT on Monday, and results will be known at 6:15 a.m. EDT Monday when data arrives from Mars, to be available in a livestream for the public from NASA.
“Fortune favors the bold. (But we still have a back-up plan.)” NASA/JPL tweeted on Saturday, in classic engineer-speak.
Repeated delays have not dampened the determination of the engineering team who are nonetheless realists. Mars Helicopter Project Manager MiMi Aung noted in a status update that the engineers on the technology demonstration are “optimistic that the helicopter will be able to take off from the Martian surface at this time; however, this is a test and we are prepared that it may not occur.”
She noted that NASA/JPL engineers have been testing two solutions to address a watchdog timer issue that prevented the helicopter from moving to flight mode and performing a high-spin spin test of its rotors while on the Martian surface on April 9.
The first solution involves adding a few commands in software to the flight operations sequence, and will be used on Monday, with the odds it will work 85% of the time. Indeed, it worked to allow the first high-speed spin test on Mars on April 16. https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/292/working-the-challenge-two-paths-to-first-flight-on-mars/ Ingenuity rotors needs to reach about 2400 rpm to lift off the surface in the thin Martian atmosphere, which is 1% of Earth’s atmosphere.
The second solution—NASA’s newest backup-- involves modifying and reinstalling existing flight control software, which has been stable and healthy for close to two years. If the first solution fails after repeated tries, NASA can try the reinstall of the flight control software.
The new software for the second solution has already been transferred to the Perseverance rover and can be sent to the helicopter if needed, after which additional days of testing will be required. “Engineers believe in backup plans,” Aung noted.
Engineers who test new products and designs are accustomed to setbacks, but they rarely have to do it all in public, real-time. Aung and others on the helicopter team are demonstrating they are up to the task.
In the latest example, on Wednesday, two days before the high speed spin test was a success, Aung joined NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zubuchen went on Twitter to answer 13 questions about why the spin test did not happen as planned, and intended fixes. Aung called the interrupted spin test a “very, very subtle timing challenge” that had not shown up in repeated tests on Earth and Zurbuchen added, “These things really do happen. It just happens in space.”
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“Our team considers Monday’s attempted first flight like a rocket launch: We’re doing everything we can to make it a success, but we also know that we may have to scrub and try again,” Aung wrote in her status update Saturday.
“In engineering there is already uncertainty, but this is what makes working on advanced technology so exciting and rewarding. We have to continually innovate and develop new solutions to new challenges. And we get to try things others have only dreamed of,” she concluded.