NASA loses contact with its mini-helicopter on Mars

NASA has lost contact with its tiny helicopter Ingenuity during the hard-working craft's 72nd flight, the space agency said.

The agency's engineers are attempting to re-establish communications, which ended abruptly on Thursday as the craft was making its descent from a test flight, NASA said late Friday. 

Ingenuity, which resembles a large drone, had arrived on Mars in 2021 with the rover Perseverance and became the first motorized craft to fly autonomously on another planet.

Data from the helicopter's flights are transmitted via Perseverance back to Earth.

On its flight Thursday — "a quick pop-up vertical flight to check out the helicopter’s systems, following an unplanned early landing during its previous flight," NASA said — Ingenuity successfully attained an altitude of 40 feet (12 meters).

But "during its planned descent, communications between the helicopter and rover terminated early, prior to touchdown," the agency said, adding that "the Ingenuity team is analyzing available data and considering next steps to reestablish communications."

In a post on X, the former Twitter, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory added that Perseverance was temporarily "out of line-of-sight with Ingenuity, but the team could consider driving closer for a visual inspection."