NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

On Jupiter Broadcasting there was a lot of interviews on how this was a Linux powered device and could be the first of many new Linux devices on Mars by JPL. If I remembered correctly they used a space hardened Power cpu with an ancient version of Yocto since the newer versions of it did not have working drivers. When the rover had an issue they actually used the helicoptor&#x27;s userspace command line GNU utilities to debug and get logs from the rover to send to Earth.<p>Also, this makes Mars the second planet that uses Linux more than Windows as noted by the tweet in the linux below. :-)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;2&#x2F;19&#x2F;22291324&#x2F;linux-perseverance-mars-curiosity-ingenuity" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;2&#x2F;19&#x2F;22291324&#x2F;linux-perseveran...</a>

For me, being listed as a contributor to Ingenuity is one of the highlights of my career in software development. I mean, I just fixed a bug in some python library, but that was enough to get the GitHub Ingenuity badge. And when ever I am asked for a fun fact about myself, I can answer: some of my code is flying on Mars :)

Didn&#x27;t this use mostly off the shelf parts? If so, I wonder how this will impact costs on future missions. If they can do more with consumer hardware, they can save budget to apply toward more science.

I actually go to the gym with one of the guys who worked(s) on this copter&#x2F;drone. Super cool guy

It was probably just stuck in a tree.

I&#x27;m curious how long they expected it to remain in working condition. NASA has a habit of underestimating lifespans by a comical amount. It will be like &quot;we expected the rover to operate for 10 weeks and that was 6 years ago&quot;. I think the most extreme example is Voyager 1, which was on a 5-year mission that reached nearly 50 years.

We will use more helicopters instead of rovers for new missions ? Or larger crafts would be much harder or riskier to use ?<p>Or maybe have a helicopter that can move the rover with the equipment to different locations.

&gt; &quot;Good news today,&quot; NASA&#x27;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, late Saturday.<p>I heard this line in my mind with Professor Fansworth&#x27;s voice.

So did it crash, or freeze?

Yeah! Let&#x27;s go NASA, Godspeed! USA, USA, USA!!! Not only has it already exceeded its objectives, but now it may generate even more useful data for new objectives...does anyone know if NASA maintains any kind of engineering blog or stream where we can learn more details about what went wrong and how they reconnected?