Free Astronomy Magazine

JULY-AUGUST 2022 of its orbit, Martian northern win- ters tend to not be as brutally long and cold as those in the south, which is hopefully good news for Ginny’s future. The lows expected to be ex- perienced by Ingenuity are still a considerable drain not only on its battery. Because the energy drain from the onboard heaters used to keep electronics at a not-too-low temperature is too great for the bat- tery to accommodate overnight, the lifetime of its electronics now risk a reduction that might, as one among several possible reasons, leave us with a dead helicopter by winter’s end. The charge/drain cycle of its on- board battery, currently also depend- ent on the amount of dust covering the solar panels, not only affects on- board hardware, but also software − the constantly reset mission clock, un- able to be maintained without the battery source, means that each reboot of Ingenuity’s computer will be out-of-sync with that of its stably- T his image shows the remains of an ancient delta in Mars’ Jezero Crater, which NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will explore for signs of fossilized microbial life. The image was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera aboard the ESA (Eu- ropean Space Agency) Mars Express orbiter. [ESA/DLR/FU-Berlin] powered Perseverance host com- puter, providing another potential operational obstacle in the long-term.