NASA regains contact with mini helicopter on Mars

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has re-established contact with its tiny helicopter on Mars, the United States space agency said Saturday.

Ingenuity, a half-meter tall drone, serves as Mars rover Perseverance’s aerial scout, assisting its wheeled companion in searching for possible signs of ancient microbial life. It arrived on Mars in 2021 aboard Perseverance and became the first motorized craft to fly autonomously on another planet.

Data from the helicopter are transmitted via Perseverance back to Earth, but communications were suddenly lost during a test flight on Thursday, Ingenuity’s 72nd lift-off on Mars.

“Good news today,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote on X late Saturday.

The agency said that contact had finally been made with the helicopter by commanding Perseverance to “perform long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity’s signal.”

“The team is reviewing the new data to better understand the unexpected comms dropout during Flight 72,” it added.

NASA previously said that Ingenuity had attained an altitude of 12 meters on Flight 72, which was a “quick pop-up vertical flight to check out the helicopter’s systems, following an unplanned early landing during its previous flight.”

But during its descent, “communications between the helicopter and rover terminated early, prior to touchdown,” the agency said.

NASA has lost contact with the helicopter before, including for an agonizing two months last year.