Bad news! NASA loses contact with its mini-helicopter Ingenuity 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 (1...