After losing contact with its helicopter, NASA put the entire Mars mission on hold

Since its first brief hop on April 19, 2021, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter has subsequently made an additional 27 flights, traveling nearly 7 km across the surface of the red planet and scouting ahead of NASA's Perseverance rover. And just as the helicopter needs all of the solar energy it can get, the northern hemisphere of Mars is approaching the dead of winter, which comes in a little more than two months.Due to these battery issues, the helicopter's team of flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory lost contact with the helicopter on May 3. The engineers say they hope to resume Ingenuity's flight campaign within the next several days after bringing the helicopter's batteries to a full charge.Unfortunately, this may be the beginning of the end for a helicopter that has vastly exceeded all expectations.