NASA's Mars Ingenuity helicopter is alright.
The space agency recently announced that the high-flying helicopter partner of its Perseverance rover is all well and good after about two months of no contact.
Ingenuity was thought to be capable of lasting only five days on Mars, but the little helicopter managed to surpass experts' predictions tenfold and then some; it even broke its own records during its operation on the Red Planet.
Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Communication Loss Details
A picture of NASA's Mars Ingenuity helicopter from Perseverance's Mastcam-Z on April 16, just after its 50th flight.
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter has finally re-established communications with it; the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California lost contact with it sometime on April 26 as it descended toward the surface after landing, per NASA.
While this may sound alarming, it isn't - the Ingenuity team expected such an event to occur because a hill stood between the helicopter's landing location and Perseverance's since the latter acts as a radio relay between the helicopter and mission controllers at JPL. As such, the Ingenuity team prepared and developed re-contact plans for when the rover would drive back within range.
NASA sent Ingenuity up in the air for its 52nd flight to reposition the helicopter and take images of the Martian surface for Perseverance's science team. According to JPL Ingenuity team lead Josh Anderson, this fact, and the hilly terrain Perseverance was in at the time, meant that NASA had to keep Ingenuity ahead of Perseverance, which occasionally involves pushing beyond the rover's communication limits temporarily.
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Although NASA wouldn't hear from the helicopter again after some time, it did re-establish communications with it on June 28, when Perseverance crested the hill between them. Ingenuity's re-establishment of communications on June 28 meant that NASA couldn't re-establish communications with it for 63 days.
Thankfully, NASA confirms that everything is alright with Ingenuity despite losing communication with it for such an extended period, as evidenced by the data it sent to NASA. Should Ingenuity's health remain as such, the helicopter may fly again for its 53rd flight within the next two weeks.
For its 53rd flight, NASA is targeting an interim airfield to the west of Perseverance's location, where the team plans to perform another westward flight to a new base of operations near a rocky outcrop the Perseverance team wants to explore.
NASA Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Details
NASA's Mars Ingenuity Helicopter shouldn't be fully functioning for this long - experts previously believed that Ingenuity could only survive five flights without sustaining damage because of Mars' thin atmosphere, which makes it difficult to achieve enough lift. Martian nights could also reach temperatures as cold as -130 degrees Fahrenheit, which could affect its ability to fly.
Despite these factors, the little helicopter that could manage to fly 52 times since its arrival on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021. According to Theodore Tzanetos, Ingenuity team lead at JPL, Ingenuity had "blown out of the water any sort of metric of success" due to its longevity and flights.
These flights were done not by remote piloting since Mars is far from Earth, but by pre-programmed flight paths which Ingenuity follows.
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