NASA announces its reconnected with helicopter stationed on Mars

NASA announced on Saturday that it lost communications with Ingenuity, its reconnaissance helicopter that's currently located on the surface of Mars.

The space agency announced Saturday that after Ingenuity executed Flight 72 on January 18, communications between the helicopter and Perseverance, NASA's Mars rover, terminated. The communication severing occurred while Ingenuity was performing its descent, according to the space agency.

Only a day later, NASA posted another update to its NASA JPL X account, writing communications between Perseverance and Ingenuity were re-established after Perseverance was tasked to perform "long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity's signal". NASA added that teams are currently analyzing data from Flight 72 to determine the cause for the communications dropout and ways to mitigate it from happening again.

Notably, this isn't the first time NASA has lost communication with Ingenuity, as the space agency announced last year it was unable to return to regular flights due to the communications blackout. After analysis, NASA was able to reconnect with Ingenuity and get back to regular flights. At this stage, it's not confirmed if Ingenuity will fly again, but judging by its track record, I would bet NASA will be able to get the small helicopter up and running once again.