NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed its mission and will now serve as a stationary data-gathering unit on the red planet. The helicopter, which is the size of a tissue box, made history by achieving the first powered flight on another planet after being carried under the belly of the Perseverance rover.
The space agency announced the news on Tuesday, saying that Ingenuity’s team had received their final message from the aircraft. Originally intended to prove flight was possible in the ultra-thin Martian atmosphere through five test runs, Ingenuity exceeded expectations by logging more than two hours of flight time in short hops, overcoming dust storms, treacherous terrain, a dead sensor and frigid conditions. Its mission evolved to act as an aerial scout to assist its wheeled companion in searching for signs of ancient microbial life from billions of years ago when Mars was much wetter and warmer than today.
Designed to operate in springtime, Ingenuity’s solar-powered heating system was unable to remain on throughout the night in winter. That led to the flight computer freezing over and forced engineers to devise new protocols. NASA said on Monday it was attempting to bring Martian rocks collected by the Perseverance rover back to Earth faster and more cheaply, with the agency facing mounting criticism for going massively over budget. The effort comes as China is making progress towards a simpler “grab-and-go” sample return mission to the red planet “around 2030,” according to state media, which would make it the first nation to achieve the feat.