Nasa announces end of history-making Mars helicopter Ingenuity mission
- Nasa’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter ends nearly three-year mission after sustaining rotor damage
- The helicopter made history in 2021 by achieving the first powered flight on another world
“It is bittersweet that I must announce that Ingenuity, the ‘little helicopter that could’ – and it kept saying, ‘I think I can, I think I can’ – well, it has now taken its last flight on Mars,” Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson said in a video posted on social media.
The US space agency said Ingenuity made an “emergency landing” during its second-to-last flight.
During its last flight, the craft on January 18 lost contact with Perseverance, the rover from which Ingenuity deployed in 2021, when it was flying about 1 metre above the ground while descending to land, Nasa added.
Engineers at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory restored contact with Ingenuity the next day, and imagery taken days later showed damage to one of its carbon fibre rotorblades, the space agency said.
An image released by Nasa that was taken by Ingenuity’s on board camera captured the aircraft’s shadow on the Martian surface, appearing to show one of its rotorblades broken.