NASA’s Mars helicopter flies again after a two-month break

After a lengthy break due to bitterly cold conditions on the distant planet, NASA's Mars helicopter is back in the air.

The JPL, which is overseeing the current Mars mission, revealed that the flight involved a short hop to enable the team to test it.

The helicopter is in the air again. "JPL said in the message." The team took a short hop over the weekend so they could check the vitals and clean the solar panel.

The #MarsHelicopter is back in flight! After a two-month hiatus, the rotorcraft did a short hop over the weekend so the team can check its vitals and knock some dust off the solar panel.

Learn more about why the team wanted a simple Flight 30: https://t.co/02Bn48aQ3Y pic.twitter.com/bnCUG794Ks

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) August 22, 2022

The lift-off marked Ingenuity's 30th sortie and came 16 months after it became the first aircraft to fly on a planet other than Earth.

The helicopter was forced to take a break due to the harsh winter conditions that surround Jezero Crater. The helicopter was unable to maintain an adequate charge due to the cold temperatures and the reduced amount of sunlight on its solar panel. The last time Ingenuity flew was on June 11.

After a couple of short, ground-based tests on August 6 and 15, the team at JPL confirmed that Ingenuity was good to fly.

According to a plan released prior to Saturday's sortie, the flight involved Ingenuity climbing to a maximum altitude of about five meters, flying sideways for about two meters, and then coming back down to the ground. The flight was expected to take 33 seconds.

JPL said in a recent post that they intend to continue their flight path towards the river Delta in the coming weeks. With higher battery states of charge will come longer flights, and eventually Ingenuity will be able to power its internal heaters overnight, which will stop its electronics from freezing in the cold each night.

Next month it will be uploading a software upgrade to Ingenuity that will give it new navigation capabilities for more efficient flights.

After a successful string of flight tests last year, Ingenuity started assisting NASA's Perseverance Mars rover as the ground-based vehicle seeks to gather martian soil samples to help scientists determine if life ever existed on the red planet.

To find the best routes for Perseverance to take, the helicopter mapped the martian terrain to find areas of interest, and to see if it's worth sending Perseverance for a closer look.

NASA plans to use more advanced versions of Ingenuity in the future.

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