NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter experiences 6-day communication blackout.

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, which completed its five-flight mission in May 2021, has continued to fly on Mars for months and dozens more flights, defying expectations. The helicopter's hardiness has inspired the team to include helicopters modeled off it in a future Mars mission. Ingenuity's delicate parts have stood up to the Martian cold, and NASA has adjusted by using data on Martian sunrises to calculate when the helicopter would regain enough charge to power on. NASA plans to send two helicopters of a nearly identical design with the lander as backup to retrieve Perseverance's samples in case the rover breaks down by the time the lander arrives in 2030.