Creativity needs a software update, and first flight can wait

New postponement of the first flight of an Ingenuity helicopter that faces some critical issues after being freed from the persistent rover and removed on Mars. On Saturday alone, it was announced that the first flight test would not take place before April 14, but NASA is announcing it now Waiting can take a little longer“.

But the good news is that we are only talking about a few days and that the engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have already come up with a solution. Creativity needs to update the itineraryThe operation is less liquid than expected given the distance separating the helicopter from the ground.

Remember, the malfunction occurred on April 10 during the rotary gyro test, when a watch timer safety system preventing the shift sequence from pre-flight to flight mode expired.

Once NASA received the telemetry data, it evaluated several solutions to the problem, and came to the conclusion that the modification and Reinstalling the flight program would have been the most logical path. Thus Ingenuity will be updated with new software that will modify the console boot process, allowing the necessary transition to flight mode.

In these hours, work is underway on the improved flying software, but NASA says that if updating the software isn’t a long process, the connection to creativity and uploading may take some time. Therefore, the exact date of April 14 will almost certainly be ignored, because once the creativity is updated, it will be necessary to proceed again with the rotator tests that were discontinued over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the weather conditions inside the Jezero crater remained stable and the creativity helicopter was not damaged by the temperature changes. Here’s the latest update from the MEDA station installed to persevere.

At the moment it is not possible to set specific dates, but the good news is that despite the holidays, Dexterity helicopter in excellent health. The biggest risk to his health may come from a problem with the solar panels or battery, in fact, it is necessary to keep the heaters turned on to prevent the devices from succumbing to cold Mars nights, when temperatures can drop as low as -90. Degrees Celsius.

NASA reassures its status, noting that The power, communication and heating systems are working properlyTherefore, the exact software update protocol should not face any critical issues. In fact, remember that the data path will be somewhat winding: the flux will arrive from Earth to the MRO (Mars Reconaissace Orbiter), from this to the Tenacity Wagon and from here to the Ingenuity helicopter. In total, the data will cover 280 million km.

We just have to wait with confidence for new information from NASA, and we’ll update you as soon as we learn more