Radio contact was lost for six Martian days
NASA has reestablished contact with its Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.
The team’s chief engineer, Travis Brown, explained that radio contact was lost for six Martian sols—just under six days and six hours—after Ingenuity’s 49th flight.
According to the expert, disconnection was not initially a serious problem. The helicopter switched into and out of night survival mode, which made daily contact from Sol 685 difficult, and the interruption of communication for a day or two did not bother the team. However, after the Perseverance rover went to a more favorable place for communication, the Ingenuity helicopter could not be found, which already worried the mission team.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter survives after blackout on Mars
Brown emphasized:
In more than 700 Sols of operating a helicopter on Mars, we have never encountered a complete radio outage. Even in the worst conditions, we have always seen signs of activity.
However, with the advent of Sol 761 and the next day, the team received a response from the helicopter, and then he again “disappeared from the line”. The mission team realized that the problems were due to the ridge separating the rover and helicopter, and Perseverance moved to the next location to fix them.
However, for the safety of the rover’s movements through the narrow channels of the dry river delta in Lake Crater, it is imperative that Ingenuity fly ahead and conduct checks. The team from Earth was able to upload the flight plan to Ingenuity. Brown said:
It would be an understatement to say that the helicopter team was relieved to see the next morning the successful telemetry of the flight over the communication link on the 763rd Martian day.
