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After completing 72 historic flights to Mars over three years, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter mission has come to an end.
Originally designed as an experiment, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to operate and fly on another world, taking off on 19 April 2021.
Images and data sent back to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, showed that one or more of the chopper’s carbon fiber rotor blades were damaged while landing during its final flight this month. The crew determined that the helicopter is no longer flyable, according to the space agency.
Ingenuity, which traveled to Mars as the Perseverance rover’s trusty cradle, is sitting directly on the red planet’s surface, and mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to maintain communications with the rotorcraft.
NASA’s mission team only expected the chopper to make five test flights in 30 days. After performing its expected five flights, Ingenuity graduated from its role as an experiment to serving as an aerial scout for the Perseverance rover. The chopper flew over areas of scientific interest to capture images and help the mission team determine Perseverance’s next targets for detailed analysis. The helicopter made its last flight on January 18.
Together, the rover and helicopter have spent the past few years exploring Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lake and river delta on Mars. Scientists hope that samples collected by Persistence, which will be returned to Earth through future missions, could determine whether life ever existed on the red planet.
“The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first spacecraft to another planet, has come to an end,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “That amazing helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best – make the impossible possible. Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and for smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond.”
Besides the Wright brothers’ first landing on another planet, Ingenuity achieved many milestones. It flew 14 times longer and 33 times longer than planned, logging more than 2 hours of flight time.
“At NASA JPL, innovation is at the heart of what we do,” said Laurie Leshin, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. “Intellect is an example of how we push the boundaries of what is possible every day. I’m incredibly proud of our team behind this historic technological achievement and I’m excited to see what they come up with next.”
What went wrong
Ingenuity was scheduled to make a short vertical flight, known as a hop, on January 18 to help the mission team determine its exact location. The helicopter landed on the previous flight, flight 71.
During flight 72, Ingenuity rose about 40 feet (12 meters) in the air, hovered for 4.5 seconds and began its descent at 3.3 feet per second (1 meter per second).
But when the chopper was 3 feet (1 meter) above the Martian surface, the mission team lost communication with Ingenuity because it stopped sending data to the rover. The helicopter relies on Persistence to act as its communications relay because Ingenuity has no way to independently send or receive data to Earth.
Communication with Ingenuity was restored the next day, allowing the mission team to analyze the flight data and view images that showed at least one damaged rotor blade.
The team is still investigating the cause of the communication blackout and the orientation of the helicopter as it touched down.
One of the blades may have hit the ground during landing, Nelson said.
Now, the team will perform some final tests with Ingenuity and download the rest of its data and images. Currently, the rover is too far away from Ingenuity to take images of the helicopter.
The legacy of intelligence
The end of the mission is “bittersweet,” as Nelson said, but the helicopter exceeded expectations for a long time. The mission team overcame many challenges to keep Ingenuity flying well beyond its expected lifetime.
During its mission, Ingenuity made multiple software upgrades to help it fly over treacherous terrain, cleaned itself after dust storms, survived a frigid Martian winter, made three emergency landings, had a dead sensor and conducted operations from 48 different sites. .
The Ingenuity mission was launched in the spring, when conditions are warmer and clearer on Mars. But as the Martian winter approached in June 2022 and the mission overshot its initial goals, Ingenuity didn’t have enough power to keep itself warm during the freezing nights. As a result, the chopper’s flight computer freezes and resets regularly, causing multiple “brownouts”.
All the data collected during the long duration of Ingenuity’s mission will help guide the design of future rovers to explore Mars and other future worlds.
“It’s humbling that Ingenuity not only carries a swatch from the original Wright Flyer, but also that this helicopter followed in its footsteps and proved that it is possible to fly on another world,” Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager at JPL, said in a statement . “The helicopter on Mars would not have flown once, much less 72 times, if it were not for the passion and enthusiasm of the Ingenuity and Perseverance team. History’s first helicopter on Mars will leave an indelible mark on the future of space exploration and inspire fleets of aircraft on Mars – and other worlds – for years to come.”
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