NASA Restores Contact with Mars Helicopter Ingenuity after Two Months of Radio Silence – News18

Long time, no communicate: NASA has re-established contact with the intrepid Ingenuity Mars Helicopter after greater than two months of radio silence, the area company stated Friday.

The mini rotorcraft, which hitched a trip to the Red Planet with the Perseverance rover in early 2021, has already survived nicely past its preliminary 30-day mission to show the feasibility of its know-how in 5 check flights.

Since then, it has been deployed dozens of instances, performing as an aerial scout to help its wheeled companion in looking for indicators of historic microbial life from billions of years in the past, when Mars was a lot wetter and hotter than in the present day.

Ingenuity’s 52nd flight launched on April 26, however mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California misplaced contact because it descended to the floor following its two minute, 1,191-foot (363-meter) hop.

The lack of communications was anticipated, as a result of a hill stood between Ingenuity and Perseverance, which acts as a relay between the drone and Earth.

Nonetheless, “this has been the longest we’ve gone with out listening to from Ingenuity to date within the mission,” Joshua Anderson, Ingenuity team lead at JPL, told AFP.

“Ingenuity is designed to take care of itself when communication gaps like this occur, but we all still had a sense of relief finally hearing back.”

Data to date signifies that the heli is in good condition. If additional well being checks additionally come again regular, Ingenuity will likely be all set for its subsequent flight, westward towards a rocky outcrop the Perseverance staff is considering exploring.

It’s not the primary time Ingenuity has skilled downed communications. The heli was scouring an historic river delta when it went lacking for round six days in April, “an agonizingly very long time,” chief engineer Travis Brown wrote in a blog post.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)