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NASA said in January that the Ingenuity Mars helicopter’s historic mission ended after one of its rotor blades was damaged during landing. The helicopter is permanently grounded due to its broken rotor, and now, the Perseverance rover has taken images of the helicopter and the damage it sustained.
Ingenuity was initially designed as a technology demonstration to complete five test flights over 30 days. It made history as the first vehicle to perform powered flight on another world. It then far exceeded its initial mission objectives by completing 72 flights in three years.
“The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to an end. That extraordinary 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 flights in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a press release. .
According to the Planetary Society, the broken helicopter blade is now located about 15 meters from the missing helicopter. Geovisual designer Simeon Schmauß took images of the Perseverance rover and put together a mosaic with a view showing both the helicopter and the blade far away from it.
The accident occurred on January 18 of this year when the Ingenuity team decided to perform a brief vertical jump to determine its exact location after an emergency landing during a previous flight. Telemetry data from the helicopter showed that it reached its maximum altitude of 12 meters and hovered there for 4.5 seconds before beginning to descend rapidly at a speed of about one meter per second.
And when it was about a meter above the surface, ground controllers lost communication with Ingenuity. Perseverance was used to observe the damage that occurred, but NASA is still investigating the exact cause.
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First uploaded on: 03/02/2024 at 12:36 IST