Ingenuity spent more than 1,000 nights on Mars, completing 72 flybys, spending a total of 129 minutes in the Red Planet’s atmosphere and traveling a distance of 17 km. The drone’s capabilities exceeded even the wildest expectations of the engineers responsible for its operation.
It turns out that Ingenuity isn’t just a technology demonstration, confirming that exploration is possible on this planet despite Mars’ thin atmosphere, but that it can transmit data to Earth even while at rest.
The Perseverance rover will soon leave the helicopter’s location, and engineers met to evaluate how the drone would operate in that situation. And this was another pleasant discovery: despite the impending loss of communications, Ingenuity will be able to transmit the necessary data to NASA. This will provide the software previously installed on the drone’s operating system.
“Telemetry confirmed that the software update previously sent to Ingenuity worked as expected. The new software includes commands that direct the helicopter to continue collecting data after communication with the rover is lost,” NASA said.
Source: Ferra
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