It was forced to abandon its most recent flight attempt.
Flight Anomaly
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter was delayed due to an anomaly in its flight-control motors.
According to Jaakko Karras, deputy operations leader for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, the flight was originally scheduled for September 18. Ingenuity was designed to hover at 16 feet and spin its blades at 2,700 revolutions a minute.
That was at least the plan. After identifying issues with its two electric position control devices, called servos (electrical position controllers that alter the pitch of the aircraft's rotors), Ingenuity decided not to take off and cancelled the flight. Karras explained that although it might have noticed the problem, Ingenuity chose not to take flight.
Servo Wiggle
Ingenuity must keep its servos in good working order to stay in the air and move in the right direction. This small helicopter is used to test the servos prior to each flight. NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab calls it the "servo wiggle".
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Karras stated that Ingenuity's team performed two more wiggle testing last week. These were successful and indicate that the issue isn't completely repeatable.
There is some downtime as the Sun moves between Mars and here, rendering reliable communications almost impossible.
Karras explained that our team will have several weeks to finish their analysis since Mars will be in solar conjunction from mid-October. We won't be linking any command sequences for Ingenuity during this time.
The team will have to wait and watch Ingenuity's performance during the two-week vacation. Karras said,
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READ MORE: 2,800 RPM Spin is a Success, but Flight 14 Delay to Post Conjunction [NASA]
More about Mars helicopter: China appears to be working on a clone of NASA's Mars helicopter
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