NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Flies Again Following Unscheduled Landing

Mars, Solar System – NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter conducted its 54th flight on August 3, marking a significant milestone in the ongoing exploration of the Red Planet. This 54th flight comes shortly after the helicopter encountered a glitch during its 53rd flight on July 22, which prompted an unscheduled landing.

The 25-second flight, an up-and-down hop, provided crucial data that could aid the Ingenuity team in identifying the root cause of the premature ending of the 53rd flight.

Flight 53 was intended to be a 136-second scouting mission designed to gather imagery of Mars' surface for the Perseverance Mars rover's science team. The complex flight profile involved flying north for 666 feet (203 meters) at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) and a speed of 5.6 mph (2.5 meters per second). The helicopter would then descend vertically to 8 feet (2.5 meters) to capture images of a rocky outcrop, ascend to 33 feet (10 meters) for its hazard divert system to activate, and then touch down vertically.

However, during Flight 53, the helicopter veered off course, flying only 466 feet (142 meters) north at an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) before an automatic landing was triggered due to a flight-contingency program. The total flight time was 74 seconds.

“Since the very first flight we have included a program called ‘LAND_NOW’ that was designed to put the helicopter on the surface as soon as possible if any one of a few dozen off-nominal scenarios was encountered...During Flight 53, we encountered one of these, and the helicopter worked as planned and executed an immediate landing.” - Teddy Tzanetos, Team Lead Emeritus for Ingenuity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

This glitch in image synchronization was not a unique incident, as a similar issue occurred during Flight 6 back on May 22, 2021. In response, the Ingenuity team updated the flight software to mitigate the impact of dropped images, a fix that proved effective for the subsequent 46 flights. However, during Flight 53, the number of dropped navigation images exceeded the threshold allowed by the software patch.

"While we hoped to never trigger a LAND_NOW, this flight is a valuable case study that will benefit future aircraft operating on other worlds...The team is working diligently to better understand the circumstances surrounding Flight 53. With the success of Flight 54, we remain confident that our helicopter is poised to continue its remarkable journey across Mars." - Teddy Tzanetos, Team Lead Emeritus for Ingenuity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The successful completion of Flight 54 demonstrates the resilience and adaptability of the Ingenuity team as they overcome challenges and anomalies on the Red Planet.

This pioneering helicopter is paving the way for future aerial exploration of the red planet, offering insights that could shape the course of planetary exploration for decades to come