WASHINGTON – Nasa has re-established contact with its tiny helicopter on Mars, the US space agency said on Jan 20, after an unexpected outage prompted fears that the hard-working craft had finally met its end.

Ingenuity, a drone about 50cm tall, arrived on Mars in 2021 aboard the rover Perseverance and became the first motorised craft to fly autonomously on another planet.

Data from the helicopter is transmitted via Perseverance back to Earth, but communications were suddenly lost during a test flight on Jan 18, Ingenuity’s 72nd lift-off on Mars.

“Good news today,” Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, late on Jan 20.

The agency said that contact had finally been made with the helicopter by commanding Perseverance to “perform long duration listening sessions for Ingenuity’s signal”.

“The team is reviewing the new data to better understand the unexpected comms dropout during Flight 72,” it added.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration previously said that Ingenuity had attained an altitude of 12m on Flight 72, which was a “quick pop-up vertical flight to check out the helicopter’s systems, following an unplanned early landing during its previous flight”.

But during its descent, “communications between the helicopter and rover terminated early, prior to touchdown”, the agency said.

JPL had noted on Jan 19 that Perseverance was temporarily “out of line-of-sight with Ingenuity, but the team could consider driving closer for a visual inspection”.

In a response to a post on X asking if Ingenuity would be able to fly again, JPL said on Jan 20 that “the team needs to assess the new data before that can be determined”.

Nasa has lost contact with the helicopter before, including for an agonising two months in 2023.

The mini rotorcraft, which weighs just 1.8kg, has far exceeded its original goal of undertaking five flights over 30 days on the red planet.

In all, it has covered just over 17km and reached altitudes of up to 24m.

Its longevity has proved remarkable, particularly considering that it must survive glacially cold Martian nights, kept warm by the solar panels that recharge its batteries during daylight hours.

Working with Perseverance, it has acted as an aerial scout to assist its wheeled companion in searching for possible signs of ancient microbial life. AFP