By Marcia Dunn - The Associated Press
A navigation error caused the small Space Administration (NASA) helicopter on the planet Mars
to launch into
a risky wild flight
.
It is the first major problem it has suffered since it became operational last month within the
Perseverance
spacecraft mission
.
The helicopter, baptized with the name of
Ingenuity
, managed to land without damage, according to the people in charge of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA reported this Thursday.
The problem arose on Saturday when one minute had elapsed into
the helicopter's sixth test flight, at an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters).
One of the numerous images taken by its camera did not register with the navigation system, altering the entire time sequence and confusing the spacecraft about its location.
[NASA reveals the first color images taken by the
Ingenuity
helicopter
on Mars]
The
Ingenuity
began to tilt back and forth up to 20 degrees and
suffered power consumption spikes
, according to Havard Grip, the helicopter's chief pilot.
On video: The 'Ingenuity' helicopter makes history by flying over the surface of Mars
April 19, 202101: 01
A built-in system to provide an extra margin of stability
"came to the rescue," he
wrote in an online status update.
The helicopter ended up 16 feet from the planned landing site.
In April
Ingenuity
became the first aircraft to perform a powered flight on another planet, two months after landing on Mars with the
Perseveranc
e
probe
.
[The
Perseverance
robot
sends never-before-seen historical images of its arrival on Mars]
The four-pound (1.8-kilo) helicopter had
already made five flights
, each one more demanding than the last.
NASA was so impressed by this $ 85 million technological prodigy that it extended its mission by at least a month.
The crashed flight on Saturday was the first in this extra period.
Engineers have spent the last few days fixing the problem, NASA reported.