NASA ’s ingeniousness helicopter concluded its 72ndflight with a rough emergency landing , turn a loss contact with the rover Perseverance when it was still about 3 meters ( 10 feet ) from the basis . One communication was established , the American blank space agency announced that they had realise images that confirmed that after almost 1,000 day of service , Ingenuity had taken its final flying and themission was over . The image has now been shared and yeah , it ’s not good .
The little helicopter can not take selfies like a roamer and Perseverance is presently too far out to crack a pic . However , the squad used sunlight to inspect its rotor and spot the issue that had occurred in its shadow . The rotor blade was damaged . The 72nd flight on January 18 where it hovered to establish position was Ingenuity ’s fatal one .
NASA also released an unbelievable new pic of rippling sand dunes taken by the helicopter from about 12 meter ( 39 feet ) in the air back in December , on its seventieth flight . The image prove the widest swath of sandlike terrain the chopper had flown over yet .
Ingenuity captured this view of sand ripples during its 70th flight, on 31 March 2025, at 12 meters (39 feet) above the surface.Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
While it is distressing when a mission ends , let ’s stress just how extraordinaryIngenuitywas . It was the first flee vehicle on another world . It was also just a prototype , designed to test five planned flights over 30 day . Instead , it worked so well that it became ascience partner for Perseverance , providing a bird ’s eye view of the terrain forrader for the rover .
In total , the ' picayune helicopter that could ' flew for over two hours , journey for more than 17 kilometers ( 11 miles ) . Thehighest heightit attain was 24 meters ( 79 substructure ) , five clock time more than expected in provision . It was genuinely a pathfinder and nowmore fly vehiclesare being design for Mars and beyond .
