With the helicopter’s flight success and health verified, the team has begun planning Flight 18, which is expected to take place sometime later this week. During the two data transfer activities on Sols 285 (Wed.) and 287 (Fri.), the mission team maintained continual contact with the vehicle in its low-data-rate radio mode. On Friday (Sol 287 of Perseverance’s mission on Mars), engineers with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter mission received enough additional data from the rotorcraft to confirm that the helicopter landed successfully at the completion of its 17th flight, on Dec. Effectively, Ingenuity “flew behind a hill” or out of the rover's line of sight, briefly interrupting high-speed communications between the two spacecraft. The interruption in data communications between the Ingenuity helicopter and the base station on the Perseverance rover during Flight 17 occurred when the signal was blocked by elevated terrain between the two as Ingenuity descended at the end of the flight. The rover team also plans to collect some images of Ingenuity.NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter does not run Apache or log4j nor is it susceptible to the log4j vulnerability. NASA takes cybersecurity very seriously and, for this reason, we do not discuss specifics regarding the cybersecurity of agency assets. Throughout the helicopter’s commissioning and flight test campaign, the rover will assist in communications back and forth from Earth. Once a suitable site to deploy the helicopter is found, the rover’s Mars Helicopter Delivery System will shed the landing cover, rotate the helicopter to a legs-down configuration, and gently drop Ingenuity on the surface in the first few months after landing. Only about 50% of the attempts to land on Mars, by any space agency, have been successful. To reach the Martian surface, Ingenuity rides along on Perseverance’s entry, descent, and landing system, which features a supersonic parachute, new “brains” for avoiding hazards autonomously, and components for the maneuver known as the sky crane. The power system on the Mars 2020 spacecraft periodically charges Ingenuity’s batteries on the way there. Both the rover and the helicopter are safely ensconced inside a clamshell-like entry capsule during the 293-million-mile (471-million-kilometer) journey to Mars. Ingenuity is nestled up sideways under the belly of the Perseverance rover, with a cover to protect it from the debris kicked up during landing. Ingenuity relies upon the Mars 2020 Perseverance spacecraft for safe passage to Mars and for operations on the Red Planet's surface.

Its pioneering aspirations are similar to those of the Wright brothers' Flyer, which achieved the first powered, controlled flight on Earth.ģ. Ingenuity will attempt up to five test flights within a 30-Martian-day (31-Earth-day) demonstration window. That means slightly more mass can be lifted at a given spin rate. Mars does give the helicopter a little help: The gravity there is only about one-third that of Earth’s. Because the Mars atmosphere is so much less dense, Ingenuity is designed to be light, with rotor blades that are much larger and spin much faster than what would be required for a helicopter of Ingenuity’s mass on Earth. Mars has a rarefied atmosphere – just about 1% of the density of our atmosphere on Earth. One of Ingenuity’s first objectives when it gets to the Red Planet is just to survive the frigid Martian night for the first time. Tests on Earth at the predicted temperatures indicate they should work as designed, but the team is looking forward to the real test at Mars. These temperatures will push the original design limits of the off-the-shelf parts used in Ingenuity. Mars has beyond bone-chilling temperatures, with nights as cold as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius) at Jezero Crater. Ingenuity will attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet – a feat with a high degree of difficulty.

Nasa helicopter on mars