Almost a year ago, NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, broke a blade during what would become its final flight. Now, an investigation by the space agency may finally be getting close to understanding why Ingenuity crashed, which could help it prevent such an incident in future planetary exploration missions.
Ingenuity was, quite literally, one of the most accomplished pieces of tech that humanity has ever built. The little helicopter was put together using a combination of custom-made and off-the-shelf parts, as NASA wanted to showcase that you didn’t need expensive technology to make planetary exploration possible.
During its three-year tenure, the Ingenuity helicopter accomplished far more than scientists ever expected. It flew higher, faster, and further than NASA ever planned it to. It began as merely a demonstration that flight on other planets was possible and ended up changing how we look at space exploration. However, Ingenuity’s crash in January of 2024 brought all of that to an end.
So what caused the crash? Well, after a somewhat lengthy investigation, NASA believes that the final flight—which saw the helicopter climb to 40 feet (12 meters)—ended so badly because of a navigation error that caused “high horizontal velocities at touchdown,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory revealed. However, the agency says there are multiple scenarios that make sense with the available data.
But, the most likely of the scenarios that could have led to Ingenuity’s crash is, indeed, the one that caused Ingenuity to pitch and roll on a sandy Martian slope, which led to the rotor blades snapping. In fact, one blade was completely separated from the helicopter.
This, of course, left he helicopter unable to continue flying. However, NASA has learned a lot from Ingenuity’s various record-breaking flights. While the helicopter was built to be affordable while still demanding large amounts of computer power, the next Mars helicopter could weigh 20 times as much and be able to fly up to two miles (three kilometers) in a single day.
