NASA Successfully Reconnects with Mini-Helicopter on Mars

 

NASA has successfully re-established contact with its small helicopter on Mars, following an unexpected outage that raised concerns about the drone's operational status. Ingenuity, a 1.6-feet-tall drone, landed on Mars in 2021 and made history as the first motorized craft to autonomously fly on another planet. Data from Ingenuity is transmitted to Earth via the Perseverance rover, but communication was suddenly lost during its 72nd test flight on Mars.

"Good news today," announced NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on X, formerly Twitter, late Saturday. The agency revealed that contact had been restored by instructing Perseverance to conduct extended listening sessions to capture Ingenuity's signal. NASA is now reviewing the new data to understand the unexpected communication dropout during Flight 72.

During the flight, Ingenuity reached an altitude of 40 feet (12 meters) for a quick vertical check of its systems following an unplanned early landing in its previous flight. However, communication between the helicopter and rover terminated early during the descent. JPL mentioned on Friday that Perseverance was temporarily out of line-of-sight with Ingenuity, but the team considered driving closer for a visual inspection.

Responding to a query about whether Ingenuity could fly again, JPL stated on Saturday that the team needs to assess the new data before making a determination. Despite occasional communication challenges, Ingenuity has exceeded expectations, surviving the Martian environment and contributing significantly to the mission's goals, including assisting Perseverance in searching for signs of ancient microbial life.

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