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NASA release final images taken by $85 million Mars Helicopter before ’emergency landing’
NASA has released the final images taken by its pioneering Ingenuity Mars Helicopter before the $85 million craft suffered terminal damage in an emergency landing.
The space agency lost contact with the craft during a flight on January 18 and upon reestablishing contact, it has been confirmed that one of Ingenuitys rotor blades has been damaged.
NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter
The Ingenuity helicopter landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, as part of the Perseverance rover mission and became the first aircraft to achieve a powered flight from the surface of another planet.
Ingenuity cost a total of $80 million to build and a further $5 million to operate, which formed part of the $2.4 billion invested in building and launching the Perseverance mission to Mars.
The autonomous helicopter was originally designed to perform up to five test flights over 30 days. Instead, the craft lasted more than three years on the Martian surface, surviving nighttime temperatures of -130� F (-90� C), and went on to perform a staggering 72 flights.
Ingenuitys mission on Mars came to an end on January 18, 2024. After conducting an emergency landing during its previous flight, the 72nd and final flight ended abruptly when NASA suddenly lost contact with the craft during its descent. Communications were reestablished the following day but imagery revealed that Ingenuity had suffered damage to one of its rotor blades.
The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to [an] end, said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement. That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best make the impossible, possible.
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NASA releases final images
Following the conclusion of Ingenuitys mission on Mars, NASA has released the final images taken by the helicopter.
Prior to its fatal emergency landing, Ingenuity took the following image of the Martian surface during its 70th flight on December 22. Taken from a height of 39 feet (12 meters), the image shows a large expanse of rippled sand dunes with a mountain visible in the distance.
One of the helicopters landing legs can also be seen on the left-hand side of the image.
The craft came to its final landing site on the right-hand side of the image above and it is believed that the relatively featureless terrain contributed to Ingenuitys fate. The autonomous helicopter navigates by tracking features on the planets surface, such as rocks, boulders and ridges, but the empty landscape made it harder for the craft to successfully navigate.
After reestablishing contact with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the NASA team captured the following image that shows a shadow of one of the vehicles rotor blades which has suffered damage that has brought an end to its mission on the Red Planet.
With Ingenuitys flight operations now concluded, the team will perform final tests on the crafts systems and recover any remaining imagery and data from its onboard memory.
