NASA Restores Contact with Mars Ingenuity Helicopter After 63 Days

National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California has confirmed the success of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s 52nd flight, which took place on April 26.

The flight was aimed at relocating the chopper and taking images of the Martian landscape for the rover’s science team. It covered 1,191 feet (363 meters) and lasted 139 seconds.

However, the JPL mission controllers lost contact with the chopper as it descended to land on the Mars surface. This was because the Perseverance rover, which acts as a radio relay between the controllers and the chopper, was in a different location from where the chopper had landed, and there was a slope blocking the signal.

The Ingenuity team had anticipated this communication failure and had planned strategies to re-establish contact when the rover would come back within range. This happened on June 28, when Perseverance reached the top of the hill and spotted Ingenuity again, according to an article on JPL’s website.

The data that is coming in indicates that the first aircraft on another planet is doing well. The helicopter may fly again in a few weeks if the rest of Ingenuity’s health checks are also positive. The team plans to make another westward flight to a new landing site near a rocky outcrop that they want to explore from the temporary airstrip that Flight 53 is expected to reach.

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