According to CNET, Mars is not friendly to solar panels. A few years ago, a violent dust storm on the dusty planet destroyed NASA's opportunity probe, challenged the insight lander, and now puts the ingenuity helicopter in trouble The rotorcraft briefly lost contact with its companion perseverance rover, and the helicopter team believes that dust in the atmosphere may be the cause of the problem
This extraordinary aircraft has exceeded expectations and has flown 28 times since it arrived with the perseverance rover in early 2021. It communicates with the earth by using perseverance as a repeater.
Ingenuity experienced a loss of communication with the rover on May 3, but re established contact on May 5. NASA JPL said in a statement on Friday that the helicopter entered a low power state, which may be caused by the seasonal increase in dust and the low temperature of the upcoming Martian winter.
Ingenuity relies on its solar rechargeable batteries to operate, communicate and spend cruel cold nights. It seems that the helicopter missed the scheduled Rover communication meeting because a key component called field programmable gate array (FPGA) lost power at night. The clock of the rotorcraft is reset. "Basically, when ingenuity thought it was time to contact perseverance, the rover's base station was not listening," NASA said.
Perseverance began to listen to ingenuity for a long time (thanks for the instructions from Earth) and finally re established contact. The helicopter reported that it was healthy. Thankfully, ingenuity has resumed contact, but there may be longer-term problems. "Increased (dimming) dust in the air means charging the helicopter's batteries to a level that keeps important components such as clocks and heaters powered up throughout the night, which is a major challenge," NASA said
In order to extend ingenuity's mission, the team is ordering the rotorcraft to adjust the treatment of its heater to keep the battery charged at night. The idea is to build a charge, even if it means exposing some fragile parts to the cold.
Teddy tzanetos, head of ingenuity team, said: "our first task is to keep communicating with ingenuity in the next few sols, but even so, we know that there will be major challenges in the future."
If all goes well, ingenuity will continue to explore the terrain of Mars, as perseverance explores the charming River Delta in jezro crater. Every flight made by ingenuity is worth celebrating, which further proves that air exploration is possible in other worlds.