Mars drone Ingenuity survives week-long outage

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was almost left without

unmanned helicopter Ingenuity, which has been on Mars for more than two years. The agency lost contact with the drone for almost a week.

What is known

Starting from the 685th Martian day, the helicopter beganswitch to night survival mode. Initially, NASA specialists did not pay attention to this, but on the 755th day, communication with Ingenuity was completely lost.

The drone did not communicate for 6Martian days, i.e. 6 days and 6 hours our time. On the 761st Martian day of the mission, Ingenuity was able to send a signal. A day later, he sent another signal. At the same time, the drone did not react in any way to the attempts of specialists to establish a connection.

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Ingenuity escorts the roverperseverance. It was important for NASA to get the drone to fly as the rover kept moving. Fortunately, the helicopter was able to complete the flight. On the 763rd Martian day since the beginning of the mission, Ingenuity made a flight of 300 meters, during which he rose to a height of 18 meters, which became a record.