NASA has initiated an unprecedented investigation into the crash of its Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, which lost contact during its 72nd flight on January 18, 2024. This marks the first inquiry into a crash of a flying vehicle on another planet.
Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California are conducting a detailed assessment of the flight data. A technical report detailing the findings will be released soon.
Originally designed for five test flights over 30 days, Ingenuity has exceeded expectations by operating for nearly three years, completing 72 flights and covering over 30 times its planned distance.
The final flight was intended as a short vertical hop to evaluate flight systems and capture images of the surrounding area. Data indicates that Ingenuity ascended to 12 meters, hovered briefly, and began descending after 19 seconds. Contact was lost 32 seconds into the flight. Communication was restored the following day, revealing significant damage to the rotor blades.
According to project pilot Håvard Grip, investigating an incident 161 million kilometers away relies on limited data rather than black boxes or eyewitnesses. The team suspects that Ingenuity lost the ability to discern the surface it landed on.
Ingenuity's optical navigation system, designed to track terrain features using a downward-facing camera, was effective during earlier flights but struggled during the 72nd flight in the sandy, steep, and featureless Jezero Crater.
Data suggests that the navigation system lacked sufficient distinctive features to track the surface accurately, leading to high horizontal speeds upon landing. The impact caused the helicopter to veer off course and break its blades, resulting in severe vibrations that increased power consumption and led to communication loss.
During the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting on December 11, project manager Teddy Tzanetos discussed the design of the Mars Chopper, a heavier helicopter under development, which is 20 times the weight of Ingenuity and capable of carrying heavier scientific equipment while flying up to 3 kilometers daily.
Ingenuity's success has demonstrated the potential of using commercial off-the-shelf components, such as mobile phone processors, showcasing design ingenuity in creating lightweight, cost-effective equipment for harsh environments like Mars. This experience has inspired NASA engineers to develop lighter and more efficient electronic systems for future sample collection missions on Mars.
Despite ceasing flight operations, Ingenuity continues to transmit weather and flight system data to the Perseverance rover weekly, potentially aiding future Mars exploration missions, while the engineering data informs the design of new aerial vehicles for upcoming missions.