NASA's helicopter wreck on Mars could have a new purpose for the next two decades
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter which crashed after three years of exploring Mars still has life in it yet.
The 1.8kg helicopter made history when it became the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on another planet.
Strapped to NASA's Perseverance rover, Ingenuity - nicknamed Ginny - traveled some 293 million miles across 203 days to touchdown on Mars on February 18, 2021.
Advert
The light weight aircraft has beamed back 'otherworldly' scenes from the surface of the Red Planet, while exploring the Jezero Crater and discovering signs of ancient bodies of water.
But its mission was cut short earlier this year when it crashed during its 72nd flight.
Despite being stranded, scientists confirmed last week that Ingenuity's health system is 'green across the board,' with its 'avionics, battery [and] sensors' all still functional.
This means the helicopter's job isn't done yet; its technology can still be used to gather important information about Mars.
How did Ingenuity crash?
Scientists have partly blamed Mars' 'featureless' surface for the Flight 72 crash on January 18, 2024.
NASA explained that around 20 seconds after takeoff, the navigation system couldn’t find enough surface features to track.
These navigation errors created 'high horizontal velocities at touchdown'.
NASA said: "In the most likely scenario, the hard impact on the sand ripple’s slope caused Ingenuity to pitch and roll. The rapid attitude change resulted in loads on the fast-rotating rotor blades beyond their design limits, snapping all four of them off at their weakest point, about a third of the way from the tip.
"The damaged blades caused excessive vibration in the rotor system, ripping the remainder of one blade from its root and generating an excessive power demand that resulted in loss of communications."
What will Ingenuity be used for now?
Despite being permanently grounded, Ingenuity can still collect important data from the Red Planet.
It's now being used as a weather station, beaming information to the Perseverance rover once a week, which could benefit future explorers.
Avionics test data - essential for identifying potential flaws with electronics sent into deep space - is also being collected.
NASA said Ingenuity's avionics data is 'already proving useful to engineers working on future designs of aircraft and other vehicles for the Red Planet'.
Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager, explained: "Because Ingenuity was designed to be affordable while demanding huge amounts of computer power, we became the first mission to fly commercial off-the-shelf cellphone processors in deep space."
He added: "We’re now approaching four years of continuous operations, suggesting that not everything needs to be bigger, heavier, and radiation-hardened to work in the harsh Martian environment."
Topics: NASA, Mars, Space, Technology, Science
Ellie Kemp