Ingenuity, the helicopter that was sent to Mars as a technology demonstrator, has proven its worth as a tactical and scientific scout for the Perseverance mission. During its 46th flight, Ingenuity was within sight of the scientifically important Tenby region, but minor issues delayed the execution of Flight 47, preventing any close-up scouting flights of Tenby. Instead, the Ingenuity team attempted to image Tenby from a distance as the helicopter moved farther up the delta on Flight 47. The narrow field-of-view of Ingenuity’s Return to Earth (RTE) camera made it difficult to capture features near the boundaries of the planned image, and the attempted Tenby scouting images just narrowly missed the main area of interest.
Flight 48 was more successful, producing a treasure trove of aerial images showing the exact area of interest at a resolution several orders of magnitude better than anything prior. All of these images were downlinked to Earth and provided to rover planners and scientists two weeks before the rover would reach this area. The team chose to send the helicopter farther up the delta rather than perform additional scouting flights in the region of Foel Drygarn.
However, during Flight 50, communication was lost with the helicopter for nearly a week, and the team tried and failed to uplink the instructions for Flight 50 several times. Poor telecom performance was seen as a plausible explanation, but there were reasons to doubt it. Finally, on Sol 761, nearly a week after the first missed check-in, the communications team observed a single, lonely radio ACK (radio acknowledgement) at exactly the time when they’d expect to see the helicopter wake up. Another single ACK at the same time on Sol 762 confirmed that the helicopter was indeed alive.
On Sol 762, not long after the radio ACK was received by the Helicopter Base Station (HBS), the rover concluded its investigation of Foel Drygarn, turned, and began an aggressive sprint up the delta. It was now closing the distance with the helicopter at full speed. This presented a serious dilemma to the helicopter team. Despite having not talked to the helicopter in a week, and only knowing roughly when to expect it to wake up, the team now needed to uplink a flight or risk being passed. Relying on the helicopter’s onboard preflight checks to ensure vehicle safety and banking on solid communications from the rover’s imminent proximity, the team uplinked the flight plan. As commanded, Ingenuity woke up and executed its 50th flight on the red planet, covering over 300 meters and setting a new altitude record of 18 m.
