NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter notched many milestones during its 72 Red Planet flights. As a technology demonstrator, Ingenuity was tasked with making up to five flights over the course of 30 Earth days. But from its celebrated April 19, 2021 first voyage to its last airborne journey on Jan. 18, 2024, Ingenuity continued to push […]
Saying goodbye is never easy, especially from a world away. The Ingenuity Mars helicopter team convened one last time on Tuesday (April 16) to oversee a transmission from the little rotorcraft, the first robot ever to explore the skies of a world beyond Earth. The meeting, in a control room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory […]
The blade was broken — and, still unforged, it’s been found on Mars. Space fans scouring the raw images from NASA’s Perseverance rover recently spotted the broken helicopter blade from Ingenuity lying on the sands of Mars. Ingenuity is permanently grounded as a result of the blade-snapping incident, a hard landing that occurred at the end of […]
There’s no way Ingenuity could fly through this. Ingenuity, the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) helicopter that journeyed to Mars with NASA’s Perseverance rover, was grounded for good after suffering a hard landing during a Jan. 18 flight. New observations by Perseverance show just how rough that touchdown was and make it easy to understand why Ingenuity […]
NASA’s Perseverance Rover took a photo of its broken companion, the Ingenuity helicopter, as it sat alone on a dune. In this most recent photo of Ingenuity, the dual-rotor ‘copter can be seen motionless on a sandy dune in the background, as a barren, rocky Mars landscape fills the foreground. The photo was taken on […]
Ingenuity’s mission is officially coming to an end, but not before mission scientists try to determine how much damage the helicopter suffered. NASA held a livestream Wednesday (Jan. 31) to pay tribute to Mars helicopter Ingenuity, which suffered rotor damage on its most recent flight. During the livestream, mission managers revealed that all four of […]
With NASA’s pioneering Mars helicopter Ingenuity grounded forever after a hard landing, the time has come to mourn the first flying machine every to soar on another world and you can watch it live online today (Jan. 31). NASA will hold a free livestream at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) today to honor the achievements […]
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter was apparently done in by a particularly boring patch of Mars ground. Ingenuity suffered damage to at least one of its four rotor blades during a Jan. 18 flight, grounding the pioneering chopper forever, NASA officials announced today (Jan. 25). While team members are still analyzing what happened on that fateful sortie, […]
NASA’s pioneering helicopter Ingenuity has made its final Mars flight. Ingenuity — the first-ever robot to ply the skies of an alien world — suffered rotor-blade damage during its most recent hop and “is no longer capable of flight,” NASA announced today (Jan. 25). “The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has […]
I held my breath for a moment on Jan. 18, when scientists announced they’d lost contact with the Perseverance Mars rover’s helicopter friend, Ingenuity. Ingenuity had been nearing completion of its 72nd flight — a liftoff far past the threshold of “borrowed time” in this case, as the mighty craft was originally built for a […]
After a short period of worrying silence, NASA said on Saturday night that it was able to regain contact with the Ingenuity helicopter. The autonomous aircraft unexpectedly ceased communications with the Perseverance rover, which relays all transmissions between Ingenuity and Earth, on Thursday during its 72nd flight on Mars. It had already been acting up […]
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has gone incommunicado. Ingenuity‘s handlers lost contact with the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper on Thursday (Jan. 18), toward the end of its 72nd flight on Mars. “Data Ingenuity sent to the Perseverance rover (which acts as a relay between the helicopter and Earth) during the flight indicates it successfully climbed to […]