NASA Lost Ingenuity Mars Helicopter for 6 Sols After Experiencing Total Communications Blackout

NASA wasn't able to contact the Ingenuity Mars helicopter for a week. It was the first time they experienced a total blackout of communication with the device.

NASA Lost Ingenuity Mars Helicopter

In a lengthy blog, Travis Brown, Chief Engineer of Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, gave an update about the Perseverance mission. According to him, adding the Ingenuity Mars helicopter to the mission was a good move for the Perseverance rover as it can fly over the rover's path and present risks for both.

However, during Flight 50, the team encountered a problem as they had difficulty hearing from the helicopter for a long time. They missed communication with the helicopter on Sol 755, but since Ingenuity had already proven its capacity for survival by drifting in and out of nighttime survival mode, they weren't worried too much about it.

But the team was concerned when the rover emerged on its way to Foel Drygarn, and the helicopter was nowhere in sight. They continued their search, and it was the first in more than 700 sols that the helicopter was operating when they experienced a total radio blackout.

According to Brown, they still receive some hints of activity from the helicopter even in the worst communication environment, so they started worrying.

After nearly a week or six sols, they observed a single, lonely radio ACK (radio acknowledgment) at 9:44 LMST (Local Mean Solar Time), the exact time they expected the helicopter to wake up. They also received another radio acknowledgment on Sol 762, confirming that the helicopter was still operating.

Why Did Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Lose Its Signal?

Brown believed that among the possible reasons was poor telecom performance. However, what happened was unprecedented as it was their first encounter.

According to him, it was the "first-of-its-kind communications blackout," probably due to topology and antenna.

Ingenuity's radio had difficulty navigating the topology between the rover and the helicopter. The rover's functioning area was isolated from the helicopter by a little ridge immediately southeast of the Flight 49 landing site and the communications shadow noted earlier. The ridge's impact wouldn't lessen until the rover was uncomfortable close to the helicopter. Also, the right side of the rover's HBS antenna is low enough to the deck to see noticeable occlusion effects from different parts of the rover.

The team had to upload a flight or risk being passed even though they hadn't contacted the helicopter in a week and knew roughly when to expect it to awaken. The team uplinked the flight plan, relying on the chopper's onboard preflight checks to guarantee vehicle safety and hoping for reliable communications from the rover's proximity.

Ingenuity awoke as instructed and completed its 50th flight on Mars, spanning more than 300 meters and setting a new altitude record of 18 meters. By the time the chopper took off in the midday Martian Sun, the rover had gotten as near as 80 meters. The Ingenuity team helicopter was overjoyed when they saw the successful flight telemetry in the Sol 763 downlink.

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