![]() Ingenuity will not attempt any additional flights to test the capability of its rotors because helicopters must be impeccably balanced in order to fly, he said. The team estimates that 25% of the end of the blade is missing, Tzanetos said. It’s possible that one of the blades struck the ground during landing, Nelson said. The team is still investigating the cause of the communications blackout and the helicopter’s orientation as it touched down. NASA/JPL-CaltechĬommunications were restored with Ingenuity the next day, allowing the mission team to analyze the flight data and see images that revealed at least one damaged rotor blade. The helicopter took a photo of the shadow of a rotor blade that shows apparent damage from a rough landing on January 18. The helicopter relies on Perseverance to serve as its communications relay because Ingenuity doesn’t have a way of independently exchanging data with Earth. The helicopter experienced an emergency landing on its previous flight, flight 71.ĭuring flight 72, Ingenuity rose about 40 feet (12 meters) in the air, hovered for 4.5 seconds and began to descend at 3.3 feet per second (1 meter per second).īut 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. 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. “It’s humbling Ingenuity not only carries onboard a swatch from the original Wright Flyer, but also this helicopter followed in its footsteps and proved flight is possible on another world,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager at JPL, in a statement. The feat is still considered one of humanity’s greatest achievements, and now Ingenuity joins the Wright Flyer as a history-making aircraft that has proved new capabilities. The Wright Flyer flew four times on its first day of flight before being blown over and broken by the wind, Leshin said. ![]() I’m incredibly proud of our team behind this historic technological achievement and eager to see what they’ll invent next.”Īs the first space helicopter, Ingenuity has been compared with the Wright Flyer, the first heavier-than-air, powered aircraft to fly successfully on Earth in 1903. “Ingenuity is an exemplar of the way we push the boundaries of what’s possible every day. “At NASA JPL, innovation is at the heart of what we do,” said Laurie Leshin, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. It flew 14 times farther and 33 times longer than planned, logging more than 2 hours of flight time. Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond.”Īpart from achieving the first Wright brothers moment on another planet, Ingenuity logged many milestones. “That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best - make the impossible, possible. “The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, in a statement. ![]() Scientists are hoping that samples collected by Perseverance, which will be returned to Earth by future missions, could determine whether life ever existed on the red planet. Together, the rover and helicopter spent the past few years exploring Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lake and river delta on Mars. The helicopter carried out its final flight on January 18. The chopper flew over areas of scientific interest to capture images and help the mission team determine Perseverance’s next targets for detailed analysis. After acing its five expected flights, Ingenuity graduated from its role as an experiment to serving as an aerial scout for the Perseverance rover. The NASA mission team only expected the chopper to carry out five test flights in 30 days. Perseverance captured an image of Ingenuity on August 2, 2023, the day before the helicopter's 54th flight.
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