Calay News
NASA successfully reestablished communication with its small helicopter, Ingenuity, on Mars after an unexpected glitch during its 72nd flight on the Red Planet raised concerns about its future, the US space agency announced on Saturday.
Ingenuity, a drone-like helicopter, made history in 2021 as the first powered vehicle to fly on another planet. It arrived on Mars with the Perseverance rover, which acts as a relay to transmit data between the helicopter and Earth Command.
Data from the helicopter is transmitted back to Earth through Perseverance, but communications were suddenly lost during a test flight on Thursday, the 72nd outing for the aircraft.
“Good news today,” wrote NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on the X social network late on Saturday.
The agency announced that contact with the helicopter was finally reestablished by instructing Perseverance to “perform extended listening sessions for the Ingenuity signal.”
“The team is reviewing the new data to better understand the unexpected drop in communications during Flight 72,” they added.
NASA had previously stated that Ingenuity had reached an altitude of 12 meters during takeoff for Flight 72, designed to “check the helicopter’s systems after landing earlier than planned during the previous flight.”
Responding to a user’s inquiry on X about whether Ingenuity would be able to take flight again, JPL stated on Saturday that “the team needs to evaluate the new data before that can be determined.”
NASA had temporarily lost contact with the helicopter in the past, notably for about two months in 2023, but that interruption was planned.
The mini-helicopter, weighing only 1.8 kilograms, has far surpassed its initial goal of conducting five flights over 30 days on the Red Planet.
