NASA Explains How Mars Ingenuity Rover Got Its Glitch During 6th Flight

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter malfunctioned on its sixth flight on Mars, causing it to tilt back and forth during the latter part of the trip. Although the helicopter's performance was harmed due to the anomaly, NASA claims that Ingenuity could survive the incident and land safely on the Martian surface.

Science Times reported that Ingenuity has made six successful flights on Mars, albeit the most recent trip had some issues. According to NASA, the chopper flew for around 150 meters before it began to tilt back and forth, creating an oscillating pattern. The remainder of the flight was completed, although Ingenuity spent the time swaying.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight

(Photo : Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Ingenuity Lost Its Way, NASA Said

Ingenuity's main pilot Håvard Grip from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab said things became somewhat wobbly during the tiny helicopter's flight. Onboard sensors reported "roll and pitch excursions of more than 20 degrees, substantial control inputs, and spikes in power consumption."

In other words, something caused it to deviate from its normal flight pattern and fly more erratically than expected - an unfortunate blip after an otherwise flawless run of historic flights.

As a result, Ingenuity began to spiral out of control.

Fortunately, it stayed aloft and landed safely around 16 feet away from its targeted landing spot, thanks in part to the Ingenuity team's foresight and allowance for an "ample stability margin," according to Grip.

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Before the helicopter landed, NASA's ground team got various sensor indicators, including ones indicating that the aircraft was experiencing power spikes and more. According to Independent, Ingenuity has a navigation system and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that estimates the vehicle's position and speed, adjusting the control inputs as needed for the helicopter to fly.

However, due to the inevitability of faults that would eventually lead the chopper to "lost its way," as NASA puts it, Ingenuity does not rely just on the IMU. To deal with this, downward-facing navigation cameras take 30fps images and relay them to the helicopter's navigation system. These are used by an algorithm to examine the visual data and correct the IMU estimates regularly to precisely regulate things like velocity, the helicopter's position, and its altitude.

Here's What Exactly The Problem NASA Saw

The fault in the pipeline of photos taken by this navigation camera happened 54 seconds into its sixth flight, as Grip stated. Despite the tense situation, the Ingenuity crew seems unfazed.

NASA said per SlashGear that a single image from the cameras being lost caused all subsequent photographs to have the incorrect timestamp during Ingenuity's last mission. As a result, the navigation algorithm adjusted the IMU estimates 'constantly' using images that did not adequately represent the helicopter's true position and speed, causing the vehicle to oscillate.

Fortunately, NASA's engineers built Ingenuity to survive some faults and instability without failing. As a result, the sixth flight was a success, with Ingenuity landing just feet from its intended landing spot.

"In a very real sense, Ingenuity muscled through the situation, and while the flight uncovered a timing vulnerability that will now have to be addressed, it also confirmed the robustness of the system in multiple ways," Grip said in a Futurism report.