With Flight 15, Ingenuity started the journey again in direction of “Wright Brothers Discipline” at “Octavia E. Butler Touchdown,” the location the place Perseverance touched down with Ingenuity in February. This flight was carried out with the recently-increased rotor velocity of two,700 rpm. After reviewing the info from Flight 15, the Ingenuity staff is ready to aim our Flight 16 no sooner than Saturday, Nov. 20.
Flight 16 might be a shorter, 109-second flight. Ingenuity will climb as much as 33 ft (10 meters), glide over the “Raised Ridges” at 3 mph (1.5 meters per second), then land close to the sting of “South Séítah,” protecting a distance of 380 ft (116 meters). We plan to seize a collection of 9 colour Return-to-Earth (RTE) digicam pictures evenly spaced all through the flight, oriented to the southwest and reverse the flight path.
If we might fly all the way in which throughout Séítah on Flight 9, why are we breaking the return path into a number of segments? As mentioned within the Flight 9 retrospective submit, the terrain of Séítah is especially difficult for Ingenuity’s navigation algorithm. As a result of the navigation algorithm assumes flat terrain, any adjustments to the terrain top introduces heading error. On Flight 9, Ingenuity landed 154 ft (47 meters) away from the middle of our 164-foot-(50-meter)-radius goal airfield. The heading error on Flight 9 was much less of a priority as a result of the terrain of South Séítah was benign and allowed a big diploma of uncertainty in our landed place. Nonetheless, the terrain on the north aspect of Séítah is rockier. In consequence, now we have to be extra exact in our touchdown location on the return path. Flight 16 will sort out the difficult terrain of the Raised Ridges. By doing a brief flight over these ridges, we scale back accrued heading error that may construct up over longer flights.
Flight 16 will arrange Ingenuity for a Séítah crossing on Flight 17, getting us nearer to the present objective of Wright Brothers Discipline. Whereas ready for the Perseverance rover to catch up after Flight 17, the Ingenuity staff is contemplating performing a flight software program replace to allow new navigation capabilities and higher put together Ingenuity for future flights.
