Video: Final flight for the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter
S. Himmelstein | February 12, 2024The mission of the first aircraft to fly on another planet ended on January 18, 2024. NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, originally intended as a technology demonstration to conduct test flights over a 30-day span, was operational for close to three years and completed 72 flights.
The craft performed a planned vertical flight on January 18 and achieved a maximum altitude of 40 ft (12 m) and hovered for 4.5 seconds before starting its descent. However, about 3 ft (1 m) above the surface, Ingenuity lost contact with the Perseverance Mars rover, which serves as its communications relay, at 3 ft (1 m) above the surface. Imagery obtained by NASA ground controllers when communications were re-established shows damage to the rotor blade.
After its 72nd flight on January 18, 2024, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this color image showing the shadow of one of its rotor blades, which was damaged during touchdown. Source: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech
Ingenuity’s mission lasted almost 1,000 Martian days, more than 33 times longer than NASA initially planned. During its service, engineers upgraded the helicopter with the ability to autonomously choose landing sites in treacherous terrain. Ingenuity also operated from 48 different airfields, performed three emergency landings and survived a Martian winter.
Now that flight operations have concluded, the Ingenuity team will perform final tests on the helicopter’s systems and download the remaining imagery and data in its onboard memory.