NASA engineers have completed investigations on the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter which was permanently grounded on the Red Planet since its last flight in January.
Ingenuity was the first aircraft to fly on another world, designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days.
NASA said on Wednesday that it had operated for almost three years, performed 72 flights, and flew more than 30 times farther than planned while accumulating over two hours of flight time, Xinhua news agency reported.
During its final flight on January 18, 2024, Ingenuity climbed to 12 metres, hovering and capturing images. It initiated its descent, was back on the surface, and halted communications.
The following day, the mission reestablished communications, and images that came down six days after the flight revealed Ingenuity had sustained severe damage to its rotor blades, according to NASA.
The investigation concludes that the inability of Ingenuity’s navigation system to provide accurate data during the flight likely caused a chain of events that ended the mission.
The helicopter arrived at Mars’ Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021, attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover.
Although Flight 72 permanently grounded Ingenuity, the helicopter still beams weather and avionics test data to the Perseverance rover about once a week. The weather information could benefit future explorers of the Red Planet, said NASA.
The findings are expected to benefit future Mars helicopters, as well as other aircraft destined to operate on other worlds, said NASA.
The chopper weighing 1.8 kilograms was tasked with demonstrating that powered flight is indeed possible on Mars despite the planet’s thin atmosphere.
During its extended mission, the rotorcraft served as a scout for the life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance.
