The Ingenuity helicopter that went on NASA’s Mars mission had recently sent a video of its flight on Mars, which was also shared by NASA. The helicopter showed a wonderful view of the surface of Mars. Now Havard Grip, the chief pilot of the helicopter, has blog post It has been informed through that its sensor has gone bad. This is called inclinometer. A computer patch will be needed to fix this.
The Ingenuity helicopter has been on Mars since February 2021, along with NASA’s Perseverance Rover. Since then, it has made 28 flights on the surface of Mars, while fewer flights were planned and sent from Earth. The first purpose behind sending it to NASA was to know whether a helicopter can fly on Mars? Ingenuity told that yes, it can fly and it can do much more than that.
The challenging environment of Mars is creating problems in front of it. The chief pilot of the helicopter says that it was not expected to be able to stay there for so long, so it was not prepared and sent in such a way that it can take this much energy from the sun even in the short winter days on Mars. Can, so that it continues. That’s why it has to be closed at night. It then encounters a cold night of -80 degrees, which damages its electronic parts. It is also more prone to damage due to frequent exposure to large temperature differences.
The helicopter’s chief pilot Howard Grip said that the team had prepared a computer patch before going to Mars, keeping in mind the possibility of the Ingenuity helicopter’s inclinometer sensor being damaged. This patch will take information from other sensors so that the helicopter does not understand that it is not getting information from the inclinometer sensor. Gripp said the patch would soon be installed on the helicopter and it would be able to fly again.