NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter
The space agency said on Friday that after more than two months of radio silence, NASA has re-established contact with the intrepid Ingenuity Mars rotorcraft.
The mini rotorcraft, which arrived on Mars in early 2021, with the Perseverance rover, has already outlasted its planned 30-day mission to prove the feasibility of its technology in five test flights.
It has been deployed dozens of times since then, working as an aerial scout to aid its wheeled companion in searching for proof of ancient microbial life from billions of years ago, when Mars was wetter and warmer than it is now.
The 52nd flight of Ingenuity took off on April 26, but mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California lost communication with it as it fell to the surface after a two-minute, 1,191-foot (363-meter) bounce.
The loss of communications was foreseen because a hill was between Ingenuity and Perseverance, which operate as a relay between the drone and Earth.
Ingenuity team leads at JPL, Joshua Anderson said, “Nonetheless, this has been the longest we’ve gone without hearing from Ingenuity so far in the mission”.
“Ingenuity is designed to take care of itself when communication gaps like this occur, but we all still had a sense of relief finally hearing back”, Anderson added.
So far, data indicates that the heli is in good shape. If more health tests come back normal, Ingenuity will be ready for its next trip, westward toward a rocky outcrop that the Perseverance team wants to explore.
In a blog post, chief engineer Travis Brown wrote, “It’s not the first time Ingenuity’s communications have been disrupted. The spacecraft was searching an ancient river delta when it went missing in April for an agonizingly long time”.
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