It has been officially announced that Ingenuity helicopter will not fly
again. The money quote to start with seems like it should go to
Eric Berger at Ars Technica, since he led with the story before NASA said anything.
Something has gone wrong with NASA's Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars. Although the US space agency has not made any public announcements yet, a source told Ars that the plucky flying vehicle had an accident on its last flight and broke one of its blades. It will not fly anymore. (Shortly after this article was published, NASA confirmed the end of Ingenuity's mission).
To quote from that link to NASA JPL,
NASA’s history-making Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has ended its mission at the Red Planet after surpassing expectations and making dozens more flights than planned. While the helicopter remains upright and in communication with ground controllers, imagery of its Jan. 18 flight sent to Earth this week indicates one or more of its rotor blades sustained damage during landing and it is no longer capable of flight.
We all commented that the vehicle intended for five flights was on its 72nd flight when this mishap took place, but we may have all glossed over the reality that Mars is a hostile environment and that applies to composite rotor blades as much as to everything else. Temperatures run from frigid to sorta-almost warm and those are coupled with higher levels of radiation than here on Earth, and dust storms.
[Ingenuity] has spent more than two hours—128.3 minutes, to be precise—flying through the thin Martian air. Over that time, it flew 11 miles, or 17 km, performing invaluable scouting and scientific investigations. It has been a huge win for NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one of the greatest spaceflight stories of this decade.
It's a tribute to the Ingenuity team that NASA Administrator Bill Nelson thought it was appropriate to release a statement.
“The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “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.”
After its 72nd flight on Jan. 18, 2024, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this color image showing the shadow of one of its rotor blades, which was damaged during touchdown. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA has put together a couple of videos, one saying Thanks Ingenuity, and the second (which started after that one) about the legacy of the program. If you remember the video documentary on the 2007 Mars Rovers, Spirit and
Opportunity, "Good Night Oppy" (mentioned in the second story here) it reminds me of that concept.
Dang. (sniffles, wipes eyes...) Mars does indeed eat our robot heroes. Spirit, Opportunity, now Ingenuity.
ReplyDeleteOh to be the Man who collects these machines on Mars and puts them in a museum on Mars, to be held as great achievements for all to see in the future.
My hope is that person is alive on Earth today. And I hope they're an adult and not an infant.
DeleteIndeed, Beans - I doubt if the man or woman that collects these machines will have the same feeling of awe when they collect them as we would, though.
DeleteStill, it would be pretty cool!!
That story brought tears to my eyes as well. I didn't work on this round of Mars landers, but I was fortunate enough to have worked on an earlier one. I saw the Legos kit for the Perseverance lander a few weeks back, and bought it. I started building it that night, and finished their rendition of Ingenuity, but the rest of the kit is on hold for the time being.
DeleteI think that we taxpayers got a lot for our money with this project. I'm going to miss that spunky little heli...
SIG, my hope is that that Man exists or will exist that will protect the storied past equipment on Mars where it belongs. And, so far, with SpaceX, I feel that that Man does exist. So far.
DeleteRIP, brave little helicopter. Ya done good.
ReplyDeleteThere needs to be a cabinet reserved in Air & Space Museum for that thing, someday, when it can be recovered, and a replica placed there as a placeholder in the interim.
ReplyDeleteNo, they all need to stay on Mars. One of the hallmarks of real civilization is a thing like a museum, a reverence for what came before. Leave Ingenuity on Mars, but make sure it doesn't get thrashed.
DeleteIs there a place that the men and women hang out who designed these unique rovers that so greatly exceeded the required operating characteristic and endured so long in the projected operating environment? Who was on the design team for Ingenuity, Spirit and all those other incredibly successful adventurers on Mars? I think of them as I do Feynman but it would be well worth it to me to buy them a round at some good and quiet pub where I could hear them talk.
ReplyDeleteJPL. Lotsa smart dudes and dudettes there!
Delete