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.
Aw.
Originally designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, the first aircraft on another world operated from the Martian surface for almost three years, performed 72 flights, and flew more than 14 times farther than planned while logging more than two hours of total flight time.
Well, it certainly surpassed expectations. RIP Ingenuity, you did well.
While NASA rovers regularly surpass expectations (eg oppy), it’s still a massive achievement.
I was watching AGDQ last week, and they had a segment sponsored to talk about science tengentially related to the game played in which they put in perspective the fact that the videogame being ran had heavy troop transport quadcopters on an exoplanet, and how considerably more advanced than current tech it was as we only ever had a single vehicle do powered flight on another planet as of yet.
Yeah, JPL is especially good at managing expectations. Everything they do lasts years longer than advertised, and clearly that’s not accidental.
Still, this one really did feel like an experiment, and it’s pretty cool that they got so much out of it. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next Martian helicopter looks like.
Aw.
Well, it certainly surpassed expectations. RIP Ingenuity, you did well.
While NASA rovers regularly surpass expectations (eg oppy), it’s still a massive achievement.
I was watching AGDQ last week, and they had a segment sponsored to talk about science tengentially related to the game played in which they put in perspective the fact that the videogame being ran had heavy troop transport quadcopters on an exoplanet, and how considerably more advanced than current tech it was as we only ever had a single vehicle do powered flight on another planet as of yet.
Yeah, JPL is especially good at managing expectations. Everything they do lasts years longer than advertised, and clearly that’s not accidental.
Still, this one really did feel like an experiment, and it’s pretty cool that they got so much out of it. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next Martian helicopter looks like.