The incident occurred on January 18, and NASA has yet to re-establish contact with the Mars helicopter Ingenuity.
Ingenuity is a small robotic helicopter that accompanies the famous Mars rover Perseverance. In an unexpected incident, this duo exploring the “realm of extraterrestrial life” has lost communication with each other.
The last known position of the helicopter Ingenuity (marked in blue above, left) and the rover Perseverance, the duo searching for extraterrestrial life on Mars – (Photo: NASA).
To communicate, Ingenuity transmits data through Perseverance, which then relays the information from both to NASA scientists.
According to Space.com, the last data from the Mars helicopter indicated that it successfully flew to its maximum designated altitude of 12 meters before landing.
After that, contact was unexpectedly lost during the landing process.
Perseverance and its small companion Ingenuity captured in a selfie taken by the camera mounted on Perseverance – (Photo: NASA)
The Ingenuity team is analyzing the data to determine the next steps for reestablishing communication with the helicopter.
According to this team, it may be time for Perseverance to “return the favor” to its companion. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA, which manages both Mars robots, plans to instruct Perseverance to search for the helicopter.
Previously, the duo Perseverance and Ingenuity landed on Mars in February 2021 at Jezero Crater, a massive crater believed to have housed a large lake and a river plain billions of years ago.
This is also the area where NASA has the highest hopes for the presence of life, at least ancient life.
In this extraterrestrial life search, Ingenuity plays the role of scout. It was conducting its 72nd exploratory flight before losing contact.
Based on the reconnaissance data from the helicopter, the larger and slower rover Perseverance, equipped with enough “gear” to collect samples and conduct small experiments on-site, will explore details of areas that may contain traces of life.
