NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter has completed its final flight on Mars after a rotor blade malfunction on its 72nd flight.
The helicopter exceeded all expectations, flying for more than two months and covering over 14 times the planned distance. It also helped the Perseverance rover explore the Martian terrain.
The helicopter will remain in contact with Earth, but it will no longer fly.
“It’s almost an understatement to say that it has surpassed expectations,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said during a press conference on January 25.
“Ingenuity absolutely shattered our paradigm of exploration, introducing this new dimension of aerial mobility.”
NASA ended the mission after evidence that Ingenuity was no longer able to fly after at least one of its rotor blades got damaged during touchdown on its most recent and 72nd flight on January 18.
That flight had been designed as a short vertical flight to test Ingenuity’s systems after its previous flight ended unexpectedly early. But during the little test hop, communications shut down early, signaling an issue.
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