It’s been a harrowing 48 hours for the team monitoring NASA’s Ingenuity Mars lander. During its flight on January 18, the flying drone became loose and remained offline for two days, raising fears that the seemingly unstoppable robot had finally succumbed to the harsh Martian conditions. But this story has a happy ending, as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says it has reconnected with Ingenuity.

The problems started during Ingenuity’s 72nd flight. It is expected to be a rapid take-off test to detect possible malfunctions after Flight 71 ended prematurely due to an unspecified error. Ingenuity reached the target altitude of 39 feet (12 meters) for Flight 72, but the drone suddenly lost contact during descent.

Since Ingenuity is too small to house an antenna to communicate directly with Earth, it uses the Perseverance rover as a relay. It was this communication flow that was lost during the previous flight. After studying the problem, JPL sent a rover team to begin a long-term scan for the Ingenuity signal. A few hours later, NASA’s Mars lander reconnected with Perseverance.

The team is currently analyzing the latest data from Mars and trying to understand why Ingenuity came online. Even if NASA discovered a problem that would lead to the helicopter’s death, it would already be an incredible achievement. Ingenuity arrived at Mars in 2021, attached to the underside of the Perseverance rover. It was launched a few weeks later and made history as the first example of powered flight on another planet.

Ingenuity has flown more than two hours and traveled just over 10 miles since its first flight in May 2021. That’s not bad for a drone built from off-the-shelf components that’s only intended to be a technology demonstration. NASA didn’t expect the drone to survive the first Martian winter, but almost three years later it’s still (mostly) functional.

Despite having no scientific instruments, JPL was able to use Ingenuity to explore the terrain ahead of the Perseverance rover. But future Mars helicopters could do much more. NASA’s troubled Mars Sample Return mission has been upgraded to include two Ingenuity-style helicopters in 2022. But it is unclear what shape that mission will take after a recent independent review revealed a series of management and budget problems. One thing is certain: Ingenuity has ushered in a new era of planetary exploration with more rotors and fewer wheels.