2023-05-30 17:12:54
The Martian drone has been unresponsive for several days. The dust covering his solar panel, causing a loss of power, and the topology of the land make communication difficult. A long game of hide and seek is then played with the Perseverance rover.
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The Martian drone Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) had chained the flights in recent months, passing the milestone of 50e. The latest flight to date is flight 51, on April 23. However, it has been more than a month since the drone has flown. Radio blackouts are becoming more and more frequent.
Ingenuity’s last flights were used for reconnaissance: the drone flew over several sites pre-selected by scientists, to better analyze their scientific value before sending – or not – the rover there. This makes it possible to better sort out the sites to be analyzed, where samples might potentially be taken to bring back to Earth. However, the task is not easy. The shots taken by the RTE camera do not always meet the expectations of scientists due to flight conditions or technical problems.
Did you know ?
For the exact positions of Perseverance and Ingenuity, find on the JPL website the latest developments.
Unanswered calls
As the Martian summer arrives, the drone loses more and more power due to dust clinging to its one small solar panel. Added to this are planning problems. Having survived the last Martian winter, however, the drone no longer necessarily wakes up at the scheduled time. Perseverance’s instrument usage schedule also reduced the windows to communicate with the drone.
Another concern, the topology of the places complicates more and more the communication between the drone and the rover. Flight 50 delays were partly due to this. The drone was separated from the rover by a small ridge, and its antenna was pointing the wrong way. This led to a week-long total radio blackout, the first in more than 700 sols (Martian days) of exploration.
Once once more, Ingenuity no longer gives any sign of life. As the rover continues on its merry way, the JPL teams are trying to untangle this new game of hide-and-seek, which risks repeating itself more and more often.
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