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Perseverance detects Ingenuity at its last airfield: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this mosaic showing the Ingenuity Mars helicopter at its last airfield on February 4, 2024. The helicopter damaged its rotor blades during landing on its 72nd flight on January 18, 2024. The Ingenuity team has dubbed the location where the helicopter completed its final flight “Valinor Hills” in honor of the fictional location from JRR Tolkien’s fantasy novels, including “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. ”. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Ingenuity’s groundbreaking mission concludes after 72 flights, while Perseverance’s exploration of Mars enters an exciting phase, focusing on geological discoveries that could shed light on the planet’s ancient history.
After 72 flights and 17 kilometers traveled, it is finally time to say goodbye to the Ingenuity helicopter. Last month it was announced that Ingenuity’s mission is coming to an end after it suffered damage to a rotor blade on its final flight.
Ingenuity’s long and remarkably successful journey began three years ago at the bottom of Jezero Crater and will end in Neretva Vallis, a canal that once carried water to an ancient lake. Ingenuity became the first spacecraft to achieve controlled, powered flight on another planet, giving the scientific team access to landscapes inaccessible to any rover.
This week, Perseverance drove to within ~1,500 feet of the helicopter, which is likely the closest we’ll get to our flight partner for the rest of our mission. We took this opportunity to acquire long-distance images of Ingenuity with our Mastcam-Z instrument.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using the SuperCam Remote Micro-Imager, located on top of the rover’s mast. This image was acquired on January 31, 2024 (Sol 1048) at local mean solar time of 11:31:25. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP
While Ingenuity’s mission has come to an end, Perseverance is approaching one of the most exciting parts of its mission yet. Perseverance continues to explore the marginal unit, an area on the rim of Jezero Crater with strong signatures of carbonate minerals from orbit.
Our team made the most of this last stretch of terrain, taking SuperCam LIBS and VISIR observations of a pitted rock called Porkchop Geyser (see image above) and capturing Mastcam-Z images of a debris outcrop called Muiron Island (see image below). As the rover moves west, we are diligently preparing for what awaits us.
In orbital images of the crater rim we can see huge blocks, so-called ‘megabreccias’, which are assumed to have originated from the impact that created Jezero Crater or represent even older rocks ejected from the huge Isidis basin to our east.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Right Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located atop the rover’s mast. This image was acquired on January 28, 2024 (Sol 1045) at local mean solar time of 10:49:21. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
While it’s sad to leave Ingenuity behind, the future is bright for Perseverance and the science team is in great spirits. Ahead of us lies the mysterious crater rim, which may offer a window into a period in Mars’ history that no rover has seen before.
Written by Henry Manelski, PhD student at Purdue University and Nathan Williams, scientific systems engineer at JPL