NASA has re-established contact with the intrepid Ingenuity Mars lander after more than two months of radio silence, the space agency said Friday.
The mini-rotor plane headed to the Red Planet with the Perseverance rover in early 2021 has already outlived its initial 30-day mission to demonstrate the feasibility of its technology in five test years.
Since then, it has been deployed dozens of times, acting as an aerial explorer to help its wheeled companion search for signs of ancient microbial life billions of years ago, when Mars was much wetter and warmer than today.
Ingenuity’s 52nd flight lifted off on April 26, but mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California lost contact as it descended to the surface after its two-minute, 1,191-foot (363-meter) jump.
The loss of communication was expected as there was a hill between Ingenuity and Perseverance that acts as a relay between the drone and Earth.
However, “this was the longest we’ve ever heard from Ingenuity on a mission,” Joshua Anderson, Ingenuity team leader at JPL
“Ingenuity is designed to take care of itself when communication gaps like this occur, but we were all still relieved to finally hear.”
Data so far indicate that the heli is in good condition. If the other health checks also come back normal, Ingenuity will be ready for another flight west to the rocky outcrop that the Perseverance team is interested in.
This is not the first time Ingenuity has experienced a communication breakdown. The helicopter was searching the ancient river delta when it went missing for six days in April, “a painfully long time,” Chief Engineer Travis Brown wrote in a blog post.
