Space exploration is not one of the priorities for the United States and NASA has been one of the first organizations to experience certain cuts. Some of them directly influence one of the missions that has generated the most expectation in recent years: the Mars Sample Return.
This active project involves the Perseverance rover, a device that is collecting samples from Mars to study its climate evolution and whether there has been life on the red planet in the past. The mission also uses the Ingenuity Mars helicopter.
NASA’s cuts pointed to a halt to the Mars Sample Return program. This would mean the loss of hundreds of samples that would never reach Earth. The problem is added to the loss of signal from the helicopter.
Perseverance and Ingenuity Mars work hand in hand. The system is not the most optimal and experts point out that The devices are not prepared to be directed effectively in the conditions of Mars. The lack of budget and continued problems could end one of NASA’s most ambitious projects.
Ingenuity Mars finally sent a signal to the rover last Tuesday, reports The Register. The final message from the helicopter was simple but effective: it named the mission workers by reading a pre-loaded list and confirmed that a software patch had been successfully installed.
Ingenuity has saved all the color photographs it has taken of the surface of Mars. The ship woke up every day, activated its flight system and tested the performance of its solar panel and batteries before starting work.
Ingenuity Mars will become a test bed on Mars
The software update will allow you to change the course of exploration of the red planet. The helicopter It has now been configured to store operation information as if it were a test bench.
Ingenuity will autonomously collect all the data, but its contact with Earth depends on Perseverance’s radio connection, an intermediary in the entire process. The rover is moving around Mars and it is very likely that at some point both devices will separate and the signal will be lost.
Ingenuity Mars could continue working autonomously as a huge database, albeit on land. NASA would have created something similar to a backup of the entire project.
Perseverance will lose connection with Ingenuity at some point
The devices offer relevant information on the atmospheric phenomena of Mars, the composition of the air or the type of terrain. But if NASA wants to study the Perseverance samples, it will have to find it.
Maintaining the radio signal with Ingenuity may be crucial at this time, although NASA does not know if will return to mars in the short term and the rover moves further and further away from the helicopter.
The Ingenuity project has been more than successful: it has flown 72 times, setting a speed record on flight 62 and an altitude record on flight 61. The useful life could be coming to an end, the rotors have been damaged for an unknown reasonwhich has forced him to remain on land forever.
NASA has assured that he will still be alive waiting to be found. “Whenever humanity revisits Valinor Hills, whether with a rover, a new plane or future astronauts, Ingenuity will be waiting with its latest gift of data,” said the Ingenuity project director.
