After a brief moment of uneasy silence, NASA said he was able to regain contact with the Ingenuity helicopter on Saturday night. The autonomous vehicle unexpectedly lost contact with the Perseverance rover, which relays all communications between Ingenuity and Earth, during its 72nd flight on Mars on Thursday. It had already moved before, having aborted its previous flight for an unknown reason, and NASA intended to perform a systems check during the final ascent.
The space agency said in an update posted on X that it is now reviewing data from Ingenuity to figure out what happened. The team received the signal of persistence after being instructed to perform “extended listening sessions”. Ingenuity has experienced blackouts before, like last year, and was able to return to flight. But it is too early to say if it will happen this time. The mini-helicopter is already performing well beyond its original mission schedule.
