NASA loses, and then recovers, contact with its historic Mars helicopter

Enlarge / NASA's Mars Ingenuity helicopter has been flying across the red planet for nearly three years. (credit: NASA)

The US space agency prompted widespread dismay in the spaceflight community on Friday evening when it announced that communication had been lost with the Mars Ingenuity helicopter during its most recent flight on Thursday, January 18.

"During its planned descent, communications between the helicopter and rover terminated early, prior to touchdown," according to a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "The Ingenuity team is analyzing available data and considering next steps to reestablish communications with the helicopter."

This seemed like a bad sign for the plucky little helicopter, which has vastly outperformed its planned lifetime of a handful of test flights since it landed on Mars in February 2021 and began flying two months later. Rather, the communications loss occurred on the 72nd flight of the 4-pound flying machine—the first on another planet.