I love how well this little aircraft has worked out. The official mission for it was to validate an idea - to conduct five flights to demonstrate that it was possible, so that future missions could potentially include a little scout drone that could fly ahead and help find routes through difficult terrain. Then it worked so well that they started doing that on this mission, too - they’re past fifty flights now and have been using photos from Ingenuity to plan Perseverance’s next moves. The team who built this little drone must be thrilled.

It’s a slightly clickbaity headline, since it suggests this was a worrying problem, as opposed to part of the plan.

the recent silent spell, which the two mission teams had expected: The rover had disappeared behind a hill from the helicopter’s perspective, and it didn’t come back into view until June 28.

The endurance of all the mars bots is staggering. Well done, engineers!

Why is sky blue on Mars?

So it flew out of range, landed, and has been waiting patiently for the rover to catch up since. Part of me was hoping it had been flying around on its own for the last two months, and had come back all excited to share what it had seen!