{"id":776778,"date":"2024-02-11T16:18:52","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T21:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=776778"},"modified":"2024-02-11T16:18:52","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T21:18:52","slug":"the-ingenuity-helicopters-mars-mission-is-over-but-it-left-a-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=776778","title":{"rendered":"The Ingenuity helicopter\u2019s Mars mission is over, but it left a legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>\n    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NASA&#039;s Ingenuity helicopter\u2019s Mars mission is over\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/41ljN7of50E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n    <\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Ingenuity helicopter\u2019s flying days are over. After an astonishing 72 flights over the course of nearly three years, the drone has sustained damage to one of its rotors and can no longer take to the Martian skies.<\/p>\n<p>After it landed on Mars along with the Perseverance rover in 2021, Ingenuity\u2019s mission was to make five flights over about one month, to a maximum altitude of about 5 metres. The goal was simply to prove that it was possible to fly a powered aircraft on another world, and because this difficult feat had never been attempted before, it was expected that the mission would end in a crash landing as its operators at NASA pushed the craft beyond what it was designed for. But Ingenuity exceeded expectations to an astonishing degree.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIngenuity absolutely shattered our paradigm of exploration by introducing this new dimension of aerial mobility,\u201d said Lori Glaze at NASA\u2019s Planetary Science Division in Maryland in a press conference on 25 January. It travelled about 17 kilometres, which was more than 14 times further than originally planned, acting as an aerial scout for the Perseverance rover.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"article-image-inline ArticleImage\" data-method=\"caption-shortcode\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImage__Wrapper\"><\/div><figcaption class=\"ArticleImageCaption\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImageCaption__CaptionWrapper\">\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Title\">The Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars in an image taken by the Perseverance rover<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Credit\">NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"js-content-prompt-opportunity\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Over the course of its 72 flights, Ingenuity reached a top altitude of 24 metres and a maximum flight duration of nearly 3 minutes. Both of these dramatically outperformed all of the predictions that were made about the helicopter\u2019s capabilities. This proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that drones are a viable way to explore areas on Mars \u2013 and maybe other worlds as well \u2013 that are difficult or impossible to reach with traditional rovers.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"article-image-inline ArticleImage\" data-method=\"caption-shortcode\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImage__Wrapper\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=1200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=100 100w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=200 200w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=249 249w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=300 300w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=400 400w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=500 500w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=600 600w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=700 700w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=800 800w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/29212124\/SEI_188859915.jpg?width=900 900w\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"image lazyload size-full wp-image-2414734 ReplaceImageLazyload\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 1130px) 900px, (min-width: 1025px) 900, (min-width: 768px) calc(100vw - 30px), calc(100vw - 30px)\" alt=\"\" width=\"1350\" height=\"901\" data-credit=\"NASA\/JPL-Caltech\" data-caption=\"Ingenuity took a picture of its own shadow while hovering\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"ArticleImageCaption\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImageCaption__CaptionWrapper\">\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Title\">Ingenuity took a picture of its own shadow while hovering<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Credit\">NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>But on its penultimate flight on 6 January, Ingenuity had to make an emergency landing, only the third one during its entire mission. This was the beginning of the end. On 18 January, Ingenuity performed what would turn out to be its final flight, a simple vertical hop to determine its precise location after the emergency landing.<\/p>\n<p>As it hovered back towards the ground, it briefly lost contact with the Perseverance rover and controllers on Earth. When it regained contact and settled on the ground, one of its rotors was badly damaged. It isn\u2019t clear whether the communications loss led to the rotor damage or vice versa, and we may never know. Either way, the result is the same: Ingenuity has made its final flight.<\/p>\n<p>\n    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Watch Ingenuity&#039;s highlights as NASA&#039;s Mars helicopter mission ends after 72 flights\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/D0fkI8mO1LA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n    <\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>But it will not be the last aircraft to fly on another world. There are plans to send similar small craft to Mars to help retrieve the samples that Perseverance has collected and stashed on the surface, and a much larger one called Dragonfly is scheduled to launch to Saturn\u2019s moon Titan in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese missions lay the foundation for a bright future,\u201d said Laurie Leshin at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California during the press conference. \u201cIt\u2019s so critically important that we continue to look for places, look for opportunities, to fly these things, to get that flight experience.\u201d Ingenuity was a small aircraft, but it leaves behind a huge legacy.<\/p>\n<section class=\"ArticleTopics\">\n<p class=\"ArticleTopics__Heading\">Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2414727-the-ingenuity-helicopters-mars-mission-is-over-but-it-left-a-legacy\/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&#038;utm_source=NSNS&#038;utm_medium=RSS&#038;utm_content=space&#038;rand=772163\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ingenuity helicopter\u2019s flying days are over. After an astonishing 72 flights over the course of nearly three years, the drone has sustained damage to one of its rotors and&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":776779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-776778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-scientist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=776778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/776779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=776778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=776778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=776778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}