NASA's Ingenuity Alive, Calls Home After 2 Months Of Silence

Today NASA shared in a shocking announcement that Ingenuity, the mighty little helicopter sent to Mars in pair with the Perseverance rover, is alive after being previously thought to be dead. Back on April 26th of this year, ingenuity took to the Martian skies for its 52nd flight. The goal of this flight was to reposition the copter and image the surface of Mars to allow the rover team to gather data. After successfully climbing and hovering, the drone descended and was not heard from again until just 2 days ago, on June 28th. The sudden AOS was a result of Perseverance climbing a crest that was obscuring any way for the drone to transmit data. Once the rover got to the top of the crest, a healthy data relay was once again established, creating the first signal for Ingenuity back on Earth in 2 months.

Teams are now turning their focus to flight 53, which will come as soon as next week, pending good checkouts of the vehicle. The objectives of the flight will be to travel westward to a rocky outcrop that rover teams are interested in traveling to.