NASA Performs First Aircraft Accident Investigation on Another World
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. X/ @space_univrs
December 12, 2024 Hour: 12:12 pm
The Ingenuity helicopter has been permanently grounded on Mars since its last flight in January.
On Wednesday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that its engineers completed investigations on the Ingenuity helicopter which was permanently grounded on Mars since its last flight in January.
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Ingenuity was the first aircraft to fly on another world, designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days. It had operated for almost three years, performed 72 flights, and flew more than 30 times farther than planned while accumulating over two hours of flight time.
During its final flight on Jan. 18, 2024, Ingenuity climbed to 12 meters, hovering, and capturing images. It initiated its descent and was back on the surface and had halted communications.
The following day, the mission reestablished communications, and images that came down six days after the flight revealed Ingenuity had sustained severe damage to its rotor blades.
The investigation concludes that the inability of Ingenuity’s navigation system to provide accurate data during the flight likely caused a chain of events that ended the mission. The helicopter arrived at Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18 of 2021, attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover.
Although Flight 72 permanently grounded Ingenuity, the helicopter still beams weather and avionics test data to the Perseverance rover about once a week. The weather information could benefit future explorers of the Red Planet.
The findings are expected to benefit future Mars helicopters, as well as other aircraft destined to operate on other worlds, said NASA.
teleSUR/ JF Source: Xinhua
