[HN Gopher] Mars Helicopter Flight Delayed to No Earlier Than Ap...
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       Mars Helicopter Flight Delayed to No Earlier Than April 14
        
       Author : qwertox
       Score  : 49 points
       Date   : 2021-04-10 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (mars.nasa.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (mars.nasa.gov)
        
       | fudged71 wrote:
       | Aren't they going to miss the 30 day window when the rover drives
       | away?
       | 
       | I remember them saying the rover is going to move on regardless
       | of the progress/status of the copter.
        
         | Denvercoder9 wrote:
         | This is a 3-day delay, not too big of a deal. There's room in
         | the schedule for unexpected problems.
        
       | boardwaalk wrote:
       | The interesting bit:
       | 
       | > 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.
       | 
       | Though you can't tell too much from that. It could still be
       | hardware or software and induced by the environment or not.
        
         | sys_64738 wrote:
         | systemd watchdog issue?
        
           | willyt wrote:
           | I'm not best qualified to answer, but some processors can
           | have a watchdog timer that has to be reset by your software
           | every so often otherwise within a set interval otherwise the
           | chip resets. This works like a 'deadmans handle' that can be
           | used to detect when your code has hung and will perform a
           | hardware reset, so you're system can return to a known good
           | state. Might be something like that?
        
       | jonahbenton wrote:
       | Wonder if the flight control MCUs didn't respond in time. Will be
       | fascinating to get the readout.
        
       | 51Cards wrote:
       | Still amazing to be living at a time when a non-fiction article
       | starts with "Mars helicopter"
        
       | tectonic wrote:
       | It took a little bit of work to get it there, we can wait a few
       | more days.
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-10 23:01 UTC)