NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Failed to Takeoff for Fourth Flight on Mars

NASA Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Flight Attempt

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Right Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast. This is one still frame from a sequence captured by the camera while taking video on April 29. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Data received from the Mars Ingenuity helicopter on Thursday morning shows the helicopter did not execute its planned fourth flight as scheduled. The helicopter is safe and in good health. Data returned during a downlink at 1:21 p.m. EDT (10:21 a.m. PDT) indicates the helicopter did not transition to flight mode, which is required for the flight to take place.

The team plans to try its fourth flight again today, April 30, 2021. The flight is scheduled for 10:46 a.m. EDT (7:46 a.m. PDT, 12:30 p.m. local Mars time), with the first data expected back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 1:39 p.m. EDT (10:39 a.m. PDT).

An issue identified earlier this month showed a 15% chance that each time the helicopter attempts to fly it would encounter a watchdog timer expiration and not transition to flight mode.  Today’s delay is in line with that expectation and does not prevent future flights. A briefing scheduled for Friday, April 30, to discuss the next steps for the helicopter will continue as planned but will move to a new time, 11:30 a.m. EDT (8:30 a.m. PDT).

16 Comments on "NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Failed to Takeoff for Fourth Flight on Mars"

  1. Is it made in China?

  2. Babu G. Ranganathan | April 30, 2021 at 7:33 am | Reply

    Babu G. Ranganathan*
    (B.A. Bible/Biology)

    POSSIBLY MILLIONS OF TONS OF VOLCANIC EARTH SOIL REACHED MARS (Newsweek)

    A Newsweek article of September 21, 1998, p.12 mentions the high possibility of Earth life on Mars because of millions of tons of Earth soil ejected into space from ancient volcanic explosions. “We think there’s about 7 million tons of earth soil sitting on Mars”, says USC scientist Kenneth Nealson. “You have to consider the possibility that if we find life on Mars, it could have come from the Earth” [Weingarten, T., Newsweek, September 21, 1998, p.12]. This may also explain why life forms may exist on Venus, again because they originated from Earth.

    In the Earth’s past there was powerful volcanic activity which could have easily spewed dirt and rocks containing microbes and life into outer space which not only could have eventually reached Mars but also ended up traveling in orbit through space that we now know as meteors, comets, and asteroids. This would mean life forms found in meteorites originated from Earth in the first place.

    Secular scientists have a different explanation from creationist scientists on the volcanic eruptions of the Earth’s past. Creation scientists believe, as Genesis teaches, that as the fountains of the deep were opened to release water for the world-wide flood the force of the eruptions could have indeed spewed great amounts of earth soil into space.

    Life could not have evolved. A partially evolved cell would quickly disintegrate under the effects of random forces of the environment, especially without the protection of a complete and fully functioning cell membrane. A partially evolved cell cannot wait millions of years for chance to make it complete and living! In fact, it couldn’t have even reached the partially evolved state.

    Having the right conditions and raw material for life do not mean that life can originate or arise by chance. Stanley Miller, in his famous experiment in 1953, showed that individual amino acids (the building blocks of life) could come into existence by chance. But, it’s not enough just to have amino acids. The various amino acids that make-up life must link together in a precise sequence, just like the letters in a sentence, to form functioning protein molecules. If they’re not in the right sequence the protein molecules won’t work. It has never been shown that various amino acids can bind together into a sequence by chance to form protein molecules. Even the simplest cell is made up of many millions of various protein molecules.

    The probability of just an average size protein molecule arising by chance is 10 to the 65th power. Mathematicians have said any event in the universe with odds of 10 to 50th power or greater is impossible! The late great British scientist Sir Frederick Hoyle calculated that the odds of even the simplest cell coming into existence by chance is 10 to the 40,000th power! How large is this? Consider that the total number of atoms in our universe is 10 to the 82nd power.

    Also, what many don’t realize is that Miller had a laboratory apparatus that shielded and protected the individual amino acids the moment they were formed, otherwise the amino acids would have quickly disintegrated and been destroyed in the mix of random energy and forces involved in Miller’s experiment.

    Miller’s experiment produced equally both left-handed and right-handed amino acids, but all living things strictly require only left-handed amino acids. If a right-handed amino acid gets into the chain the protein won’t work.

    There is no innate chemical tendency for the various amino acids to bond with one another in a sequence. Any one amino acid can just as easily bond with any other. The only reason at all for why the various amino acids bond with one another in a precise sequence in the cells of our bodies is because they’re directed to do so by an already existing sequence of molecules found in our genetic code.

    Of course, once you have a complete and living cell then the genetic code and biological machinery exist to direct the formation of more cells, but how could life or the cell have naturally originated when no directing code and mechanisms existed in nature? Read my Internet article: HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM.

    Visit my newest Internet site: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION

    Author of popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS

    * I have had the privilege of being recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis “Who’s Who In The East” for my writings on religion and science, and I have given successful lectures (with question and answer time afterwards) defending creation from science before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities.

    • Richie Norris | April 30, 2021 at 9:51 am | Reply

      Ingenuity is equipped with a loudspeaker that continually plays Slim Whitman’s “Indian Love call”.

      In response to Babu …
      All green of skin… 800 centuries ago, their bodily fluids include the birth of half-breeds. For the fundamental truth self-determination of the cosmos, for dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.

  3. There is a mechanic on Mars that will fix the helicopter just like there was a maechanic that fixed the Rover. Oh Wait! The dam things fixed themselves. Brilliant. You folks beleive anything in your space monkey fantasy world. Outer space does not exite

  4. Richie Norris | April 30, 2021 at 9:49 am | Reply

    Ingenuity is equipped with a loudspeaker that continually plays Slim Whitman’s “Indian Love call”.

    In response to Babu …
    All green of skin… 800 centuries ago, their bodily fluids include the birth of half-breeds. For the fundamental truth self-determination of the cosmos, for dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.

  5. Someone who isn't an idiot for once | April 30, 2021 at 7:35 pm | Reply

    This comment section is beautiful hahaha

  6. Dust covering the solar cells possibly causing a Low power watchdog alarm.

  7. It don’t matter where it is made anything could failed or make it?

  8. I already knew that was going to happen. Introduce a problem and then wow we got it working! Please… How naive do you think I am. Lol

  9. Stephen Carl Carl Smith | May 1, 2021 at 2:21 am | Reply

    Hey Jason ,I bet you live in the USA.

  10. Stephen Carl Carl Smith | May 1, 2021 at 2:25 am | Reply

    Jason DIARRHEA

  11. Your probably a flat earther there guy.

  12. John Ritcher | May 3, 2021 at 1:21 am | Reply

    Im suprised we achieved space flight in the first place. Based on some of these comments, alot of people are just plain ignorant.

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