NASA engineers have decided to delay the Ingenuity helicopter’s debut flight on Mars to at least Wednesday, April 14th, after running into a minor computer glitch during a rotor spin test late Friday night, the agency said on Saturday. The tiny craft is healthy, but engineers need some more time to review telemetry data from the unexpected hiccup before proceeding.
Ingenuity, a mini four-pound helicopter that arrived on Mars February 18th attached to NASA’s Perseverance rover, was initially slated to carry out its first flight test late Sunday night (or, mid-day Mars time). The first bits of data on whether the flight attempt was successful was expected to come early Monday morning, around 4AM ET.
But data from a high-speed rotor test...
