JPL’s History-Making Mars Helicopter Mission Ends Due to Rotor Damage

Ingenuity — the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-built, drone-like helicopter that made history when it launched from the surface of Mars and conducted the first powered flight on another planet — has suffered damage to one of its rotors and is no longer able to fly, mission managers announced Thursday.

The news brought to an end the unexpectedly long mission of a helicopter that was designed only as a demonstration project, with original plans to make only five short flights over a 30-day period. But Ingenuity proved far more durable than ever imagined, completing 72 flights over the past three years and logging more than two hours of overall flight time.

“The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement Thursday. “That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best — make the impossible, possible. Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond.”

The helicopter, designed and managed by JPL, traveled to Mars attached to NASA’s Perseverance rover, which landed on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021. After detaching from the rover, Ingenuity initially suffered technical issues that delayed plans for its first test flight.

But on April 19, 2021, the 4-pound Ingenuity craft lifted off from the planet’s surface and hovered at an elevation of 10 feet before touching back down — a flight that lasted about 40 seconds but made space-exploration history as the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. The entire flight was captured on camera by the Perseverance rover.

The helicopter went on to successfully perform its four additional demonstration flights. With the device performing above expectations, JPL moved the craft into an operations mode, serving as a type of aerial scout to help plan the movements of the Perseverance rover.

Over the next nearly three years, the helicopter’s operations steadily improved, eventually taking on the ability to navigate to its own landing locations based on the Mars terrain. NASA officials noted that the craft also overcame a dead sensor, managed to clean itself following infamous Mars dust storms, survived a cold Martian winter and endured three emergency landings.

After its last emergency landing, the helicopter made a short vertical test flight on Jan. 18, reaching an altitude of about 40 feet. But as it descended, Ingenuity lost contact with Perseverance, which acts as a communications relay for the helicopter. JPL crews restored communications the following day, and images received a few days later showed the craft had sustained damage to one of its rotor blades.

While its on-board systems are operating normally, Ingenuity is no longer able to fly, NASA officials said. The craft will “perform final tests on helicopter systems and download the remaining imagery and data in Ingenuity’s onboard memory,” according to NASA.

NASA officials noted that Ingenuity, while making space history, was also carrying with it a small piece of Earth aviation history. Wrapped on a cable beneath the helicopter’s solar panel is a small swatch of fabric that covered the wings of the plane that made the first flight on Earth — Orville and Wilbur Wright’s “Flyer” — which pioneered air travel in 1903.

“It’s humbling Ingenuity not only carries onboard a swatch from the original Wright Flyer, but also this helicopter followed in its footsteps and proved flight is possible on another world,” Ingenuity project manager Teddy Tzanetos of JPL said in a statement. “The Mars helicopter would have never flown once, much less 72 times, if it were not for the passion and dedication of the Ingenuity and Perseverance teams. History’s first Mars helicopter will leave behind an indelible mark on the future of space exploration and will inspire fleets of aircraft on Mars — and other worlds — for decades to come.”