NASA's Mars Helicopter Flight Postponed to No Earlier than This Wednesday (nasa.gov) 16
An anonymous reader shares this announcement from NASA:
Based on data from the Ingenuity Mars helicopter that arrived late Friday night, NASA has chosen to reschedule the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's first experimental flight to no earlier than April 14 [this Wednesday].
During a high-speed spin test of the rotors on Friday, the command sequence controlling the test ended early due to a "watchdog" timer expiration. This occurred as it was trying to transition the flight computer from 'Pre-Flight' to 'Flight' mode. The helicopter is safe and healthy and communicated its full telemetry set to Earth.
The watchdog timer oversees the command sequence and alerts the system to any potential issues. It helps the system stay safe by not proceeding if an issue is observed and worked as planned.
The helicopter team is reviewing telemetry to diagnose and understand the issue. Following that, they will reschedule the full-speed test.
During a high-speed spin test of the rotors on Friday, the command sequence controlling the test ended early due to a "watchdog" timer expiration. This occurred as it was trying to transition the flight computer from 'Pre-Flight' to 'Flight' mode. The helicopter is safe and healthy and communicated its full telemetry set to Earth.
The watchdog timer oversees the command sequence and alerts the system to any potential issues. It helps the system stay safe by not proceeding if an issue is observed and worked as planned.
The helicopter team is reviewing telemetry to diagnose and understand the issue. Following that, they will reschedule the full-speed test.
Who's the aliens now? (Score:2)
Be awhile before we get photos of an American drone hovering over a Martian base.
Re: (Score:2)
What if Martians are rocks?
watchdog timer (Score:1)
> It helps the system stay safe by not proceeding if an issue is observed and worked as planned.
Doesn't really even describe a timer at all. This is not nerd news.
Re: (Score:2)
"If state[x] persists more than [y] seconds, trigger action[z]"
Sounds like a watchdog timer to me. Mind you, most of my experience with those are for things like, "if the battery drops below minimum voltage for more than 30s, or the charger is offline more than 30m, kill the computer".
Still, just because it's on Mars and the state monitoring is a bit more complex doesn't mean it's not a watchdog timer.
And that fact that it's on the first helicopter drone on Mars? Very much nerd news.
Re:watchdog timer (Score:5, Informative)
A watchdog timer is a very specific functionality in (generally) embedded systems. You set the watchdog interval and start it. If the software fails to signal that it's alive (at the low level by setting a bit in a register, at userspace level by writing a character to a device file), also known as 'feeding the dog', the timer reaches zero and strobes system reset.
In many cases, once a watchdog is started, it can only be disabled by cycling power. The point is to make sure the system returns to a known and useful state if the software gets stuck in a deadlock or endless loop. It can also help recover in cases where a bit has flipped and crashed the system.
A watchdog implies a hardware implementation.
If you have ever had a bit of consumer electronics become non-responsive for a bit and then suddenly it restarts and all is well, you have probably seen a watchdog timer in action.
It wasn't made by Boeing by chance? (Score:2)
any active forums with latest info on progress? (Score:2)
Yesterday's press conference was all about the mission and nothing was said about what happened with the rotor tests and subsequent abort.
IIRC there's lots of COTS hardware on board so time is of the essence as these things get bombarded with radiation and little redundancy capabilities.
LoB