One of the highlights of the Mars Perseverance mission is undoubtedly the Ingenuity helicopter. If it had simply carried out its initial mission of five flybys above the surface of the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater, it would have already been an extraordinary milestone in engineering history. But the thing is, as we already told you last April, the little space explorer reached its 50th flight Yes, multiplied by 10, which was originally planned, and then continues to operate.

This shouldn’t really surprise us that much because of NASA’s previous proposals It has already proven to last much longer than originally expected. The Vogayer 1 and Vogayer 2 probes and the Hubble Space Telescope are clear examples of this. And while it’s still too early to tell, we can be sure that (barring unforeseen events, of course) James Webb will also significantly exceed the originally planned service time.

In the case of Ingenuity, whose first flight took place on April 19, 2021, its initial mission was to take some photos to verify its operation. But once his effectiveness was proven, he became a scout, reviewing the possible paths Perseverance would take, this will ensure that your journeys are as safe as possible. This allowed the rover to cover some surfaces that the mission team would otherwise have avoided in order to avoid risks.

However, the helicopter also faces its own risks. As confirmed by the space agency, Ingenuity had to make an emergency landing a few days ago. It was specifically the 53rd helicopter flight and was supposed to last 136 seconds. However, a mismatch between the images obtained by the camera and the information provided by Ingenuity’s inertial measurement unit triggered an emergency procedure called “LAND_NOW”.

The good news is that the emergency landing operation went off without a hitchThe helicopter was able to land without any problems, and the US space agency confirms this in the same statement Ingenuity subsequently made a new flight.

«From the first flight we included a program called ‘LAND_NOW’ which was designed to bring the helicopter to the surface as soon as possible if any of several dozen non-nominal scenarios occurred.said Teddy Tzanetos, team leader. Emeritus for Ingenuity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California,”Although we had hoped to never launch LAND_NOW, this flight is a valuable case study that will benefit future aircraft operating on other worlds,” said Tzanetos. “The team is working to better understand what happened on Flight 53, and with the success of Flight 54, we are confident that our baby is ready to continue flying to Mars.“.