Communication Was Disconnected, NASA Reconnected With Ingenuity Helicopters On Mars

Portrait of 72nd flight Ingenuity (photo: dock. NASA).

JAKARTA The Ingenuity helicopter was flown back on Mars. On January 18, the drone had reached its 72nd flight. However, the flight had a problem.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), part of the United States Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), said that Ingenuity flights initially went smoothly and the aircraft managed to reach a maximum altitude of 12 meters.

Flights to inspect the Ingenuity system are expected to be completed within 32.08 seconds, but it turns out to be much faster than expected. The plane landed early as communications suddenly cut off.

"During the planned decline, communication between helicopters and explorers was stopped early, before landing," NASA's JPL team said in an official statement. However, JPL did not explain the flight time.

The communication between the rover and the drone was cut off for several days and had an impact on the team monitoring on Earth. Luckily, the JPL team was able to reconnect with Ingenuity on Sunday, January 21.

"Today's good news, we have rebuilt contact with the Mars Helicopter after instructing the Perseverance (Mars rover) to conduct a session of listening to Ingenuity signals for a long time," NASA's JPL explained.

Even though it has been reconnected, JPL does not yet know the cause of the communication cuts over the past few days. They are still reviewing the latest data from Ingenuity to understand the cause of the anomaly.