Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Photo from earlier sky skim by Mars helicopter, from flight 51.

After a prolonged hiatus, NASA’s Mars helicopter has made its 52nd flight.

The craft flew on April 26, but mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory lost contact with Ingenuity as it descended for a landing.

“The Ingenuity team expected the communications dropout because a hill stood between the helicopter’s landing location and the Perseverance rover’s position, blocking communication between the two. The rover acts as a radio relay between the helicopter and mission controllers at JPL,” according to a JPL statement.

Artwork of Ingenuity Mars helicopter.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Ingenuity team had already developed re-contact plans for when the rover would drive back within range. That led to re-establishing contact on June 28 when NASA’s Perseverance rover crested the hill and was in communication line-up with Ingenuity again.

Flight 52 was a 1,191-foot (363-meter) and 139-second-long flight, taken to reposition the helicopter and snag images of the Martian surface for the rover’s science team.