NASA Delays Ingenuity Helicopter's First Flight Due to Watchdog Timer Technical Issues

After experiencing a slight computer glitch during a rotor spin test late Friday night, NASA postponed the Ingenuity helicopter's first flight on Mars until April 14th.

The tiny craft is in good condition, but engineers need more time to study telemetry data from the sudden hiccup before moving forward.

"During the high-speed spin test, the sequence ended early during the transition from "preflight" to "flight" mode," JPL tweeted. "The helicopter is safe & healthy. The team is diagnosing the issue."

Ingenuity, a four-pound mini-helicopter attached to NASA's Perseverance rover that landed on Mars on February 18th, was supposed to fly for the first time late Sunday night. NASA engineers have yet to obtain the first bits of information on Monday morning, 4 a.m. ET. They have to check if Ingenuity successfully had its flight attempt.

(Photo: NASA via Getty Images)
In this concept illustration provided by NASA, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter stands on the Red Planet's surface as NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (partially visible on the left) rolls away.

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It will take more than five hours for JPL mission managers to collect the first data from the flight attempt if it happens at all. The helicopter's flight is fully autonomous, as JPL headquarters' distance prevents it from being controlled. It takes more than 15 minutes for radio signals to fly 173 million miles to Mars.

Ingenuity's First Flight Delayed: Blame Watchdog Timer Expiration

NASA said that data from a high-speed rotor test conducted on Friday showed that the test sequence "ended early due to a 'watchdog' timer expiration." It occurred as Ingenuity's machine attempted to transition from preflight to flight mode.

The "watchdog timer" from Ingenuity is just that: a software-based watchdog that monitors the helicopter's test sequences and warns engineers if anything appears out of the ordinary. In a blog post, NASA said that "it helps the system stay healthy by not continuing if a problem is detected and operated as planned."

There are no research instruments onboard the Ingenuity, CBS Los Angeles said. It's purely a demonstration project to see whether NASA could operate such a craft on other planets.

"This is really going to be consequential if we can demonstrate that we can fly on Mars," NASA Planetary Science Director Lori Glaze told CBSLA this week.

About Ingenuity Mission

The Perseverance rover, parked about 215 feet from Ingenuity and will be watching every flight with its cameras, relays JPL commands to the helicopter. The helicopter is parked in the middle of a 33-foot-by-33-foot airfield that was chosen for its flat terrain.

Ingenuity also has a camera onboard that will record the flight.

Flying on another planet is significantly different from flying on Earth, with mission managers noticing that the gravity on Mars is only one-third that of Earth, and the atmosphere on the surface is just about 1% as thick.

Depending on how well the first test goes, Ingenuity can fly to higher altitudes and buzz about in its running track-shaped flight zone at Mars' Jezero Crater in subsequent tests.

The helicopter may have some Wright Brothers history attached to it. A small swatch of fabric covering the plane's wings made the first flight on Earth - Orville and Wilbur Wright's "Flyer" - which invented air travel in 1903 is wrapped on a cable underneath the helicopter's solar panel.

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