NASA unveils the first aircraft accident investigation on another world

It was in January this year that NASA announced its helicopter living on the surface of Mars sadly died after a crash landing on its 72nd flight.

The helicopter named Ingenuity arrived on the Red Planet in February 2021 as an engineering experiment to see if flight in Mars' extremely thin atmosphere was possible. Ingenuity became the first aircraft to conduct a powered and controlled extra-terrestrial flight, solidying its name in the space exploration history books. Ingenuity went on to serve NASA's Perseverance rover as a forward scout.

NASA sent Ingenuity ahead of Perseverance, and with the helicopter's cameras, NASA was able to plot a path of least resistance for the rover, along with evaluating any upcoming valuable scientific prospects. However, Ingenuity crashed on its 72nd flight on January 18, 2024, which resulted in its rotor blades sustaining critical damage preventing flight. Ingenuity's team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said that Ingenuity crashed due to its navigation systems having too little information to make accurate decisions. The team attributes this to the monotone color of the Martian surface.

Now, JPL is saying Ingenuity will prove useful even from beyond the grave, as the little helicopter has been tasked with turning into a weather station.

"We are very proud to report that, even after the hard landing in flight, 72 avionics battery sensors have all been functional, and she still has one final gift for us, which is that she's now going to continue on as a weather station of sorts, recording telemetry, taking images every single sol and storing them on board," said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity's project manager at JPL