“NASA” has reconnected with the Martian Ingenuity helicopter, after more than two months of “radio silence,” according to the US space agency, Friday.
The small rotorcraft, which began a journey to the Red Planet with the Perseverance probe in early 2021, has outlasted its initial 30-day mission to prove the feasibility of its technology on five test flights.
The helicopter has been used dozens of times, as it served as an aerial explorer to help the mobile robot search for signs of ancient microbial life billions of years ago, when Mars was wetter and warmer than it is today, according to NASA.
The 52nd flight of the Ingenuity helicopter was launched on April 26, but mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California lost contact with it as it descended to the surface after its two-minute flight at an altitude of 363 meters.
The loss of communications was expected, due to the presence of a hill between the Ingenuity helicopter and the Perseverance mobile robot, which serves as a link between the drone and the ground.
“This was the longest we went without hearing from Ingenuity during the mission,” Joshua Anderson, head of the Ingenuity team at JPL, told AFP.
Anderson added, “Ingenuity is designed to be able to act as it should when gaps in communication like this happen, but we naturally feel good when we get back in touch.”
The data so far indicates that the drone is in good condition. If other test results come back positive, Ingenuity will be prepared for its next trip, west to a rocky outcrop that the Perseverance team is interested in exploring.
This isn’t the first time Perseverance has experienced communications problems, mission chief engineer Travis Browne wrote in a blog post. The helicopter was cruising an ancient river delta when communication was lost for about six days in April, ” It’s an excruciatingly long time.”
