NASA’s Mars Helicopter Goes Silent
Communication Issues Interrupt Mars Helicopter’s Flights, says NASA
The Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, has been experiencing communication interruptions with NASA scientists, making it challenging for the Ingenuity team to perform another flight. While it was only supposed to fly five times, it has already flown 50 times and recently completed its 51st flight. However, the NASA team says that the 51st flight nearly failed.
The communication interruption occurred on the helicopter’s 755th day on the planet in Martian time. Initially, NASA researchers weren’t concerned about the interruption, thinking that the energy of the solar-powered helicopter had dropped because it did not receive enough light. However, it became clear that this time, the cut was more severe and different from the previous ones.
Travis Brown, Ingenuity’s chief engineer, said that over the 700+ days the helicopter has been operating on Mars, they haven’t had a complete radio outage until now. After six days of no contact, they finally received a signal from Ingenuity, and according to the team, the reason for the signal interruption was due to the terrain between Perseverance and Ingenuity.
Ingenuity arrived on Mars with NASA’s Perseverance spacecraft, and while the spacecraft travels in the Martian terrain, the helicopter continues to collect data by continuing its flights. However, the recent ridge between the helicopter and Perseverance caused the helicopter’s communication signals to fail to reach Perseverance. Nonetheless, when the spacecraft approaches the helicopter again, the signals are expected to connect.
Despite the communication issues, NASA’s Ingenuity team has accomplished a remarkable feat, surpassing the parameters of its first mission. It’s unclear how much longer the helicopter will keep flying and collecting data on Mars, but its technological advancements already have huge implications for future space exploration.
