Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Completes 8th Flight, Gets Software Updates

NASA has released a new video explaining the complicated, hour-long process required for the Mars rover to take a selfie (which was actually a composite of 62 separate images stitched together). And meanwhile, CNN reports that its Ingenuity helicopter completed its eighth flight this week, "and even got a software update to fix an annoying issue that impacted some of its previous outings."On its latest outing, Ingenuity flew 525 feet (160 meters) to the south and southeast to a new airfield. This was the copter's third flight of the operations demo phase, in which Ingenuity is proving its usefulness as an aerial scout without interfering with the Perseverance rover's science missionsearching for evidence of ancient life on Mars... Ingenuity continues to do well, and the team is planning for more flights that will push its capabilities. And the helicopter is doing even better now that its troublesome "watchdog" software issue has been fixed. That was deployed before the eighth flight... Ingenuity is also due for a navigation computer software update that will fix the issue that occurred during the chopper's sixth flight. Images captured by the navigation camera, which feed into the helicopter's navigation computer, had timing delays. Those images help Ingenuity to track its location, among other critical factors during flight. When the incorrect times and images were associated, it caused the chopper to wobble in the air. Ingenuity was able to land safely, but the team wants to prevent the issue from happening again so the chopper doesn't spiral out of control. It's also why the helicopter didn't capture any color images during its last two flights.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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