2024-01-26 05:47:00
This is the end of a mission that exceeded all expectations: following almost three years on Mars, the small helicopter Ingenuity will no longer fly above the red planet, due to a problem that occurred during its 72nd flight, NASA announced Thursday.
“What Ingenuity has accomplished goes far beyond what we thought possible,” NASA boss Bill Nelson said in a video. The helicopter “paved the way for future flights in our solar system.”
In 2021, Ingenuity became the first motorized device to fly on another planet. He thus proved that it was possible to fly in Martian air, with a density equivalent to only 1% that of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The helicopter was originally only supposed to take off five times, but due to its very good performance, the mission was extended – until today.
The accident occurred last week during the 72nd flight. The helicopter had reached an altitude of 12 meters, but communication was suddenly interrupted shortly before landing.
It was finally able to be restored the next day, but NASA teams were able to note, on images recovered a few days later, “damage”.
A photo taken by the helicopter itself was released Thursday, showing the shadow of one of its damaged rotor blades.
“About 25%” of the blade is missing, Teddy Tzanetos, mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said at a press conference.
“We may never know” what exactly happened, due to the temporary loss of data transmission at the end of the final flight, he stressed. “But our engineering judgment leads us to think that during the descent, a blade hit the surface of Mars.”
The helicopter therefore no longer has the thrust necessary for flight. The cause of the communication interruption is still under investigation, but might be linked to the impact itself, according to Tzanetos.
He said other blades were probably damaged, which NASA teams are still seeking to confirm.
Already during its 71st flight, Ingenuity had to make an emergency landing, the space agency said. It was then operating on difficult terrain because it did not have much relief – a challenge for its autonomous navigation system, relying on landmarks on the ground.
The 72nd flight, scheduled to be short, was carried out under the same conditions.
– Scout –
Far from being sad, the announcement made it possible to salute all the achievements of the machine.
“Ingenuity has completely shattered our exploration paradigm, adding a new aerial dimension,” said Lori Glaze, director of planetary sciences at NASA.
Weighing only 1.8 kg, the helicopter looked more like a large drone.
In total, he covered some 17 kilometers and flew to an altitude of 24 meters. His cumulative flight time amounts to more than two hours.
He arrived on Mars in February 2021, with the Perseverance rover, whose mission is to look for traces of ancient microbial life on Mars.
Ingenuity was thus able to play the role of aerial scout to help its wheeled companion.
The latter is currently “too far away” to try to visit the helicopter and photograph it up close, NASA said.
Since the rover serves as a relay to transmit data between Ingenuity and Earth, communication with the helicopter will be lost when Perseverance continues its journey.
Ingenuity’s longevity is remarkable, knowing in particular that it had to survive the freezing Martian nights by warming itself thanks to solar panels which charged its batteries during the day.
The American space agency is already working on another flying machine project, as part of the Dragonfly mission, this time with Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, as its destination.
Helicopters might also, in the future, help the exploration of Mars by humans, argued Teddy Tzanetos: “No one should be surprised anymore if, in the future, the first astronauts, the first woman and the first man on the surface, are surrounded by a fleet of aircraft, capturing these scenes.”
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