Mars Helicopter Updates
Overview: NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has completed 72 flights since first taking to the skies above the Red Planet, ending its mission on Jan. 25, 2024. Look at the archived mission updates written by the Mars Helicopter team. Dates of planned test activities sometimes changed due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays, helicopter and/or rover status.
Unlocking the Martian Skies – Using Ingenuity as a Martian Testbed for Future Rotorcraft
Unlocking the Martian Skies – Using Ingenuity as a Martian Testbed for Future Rotorcraft
Ingenuity Reestablishes Communications
On Saturday, Jan. 20, communications were reestablished between Ingenuity and NASA’s Perseverance rover.
Flight 72 Status Update
On Jan. 18, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter executed its 72nd flight at the Red Planet. The flight was designed as a quick pop-up vertical flight to check out the helicopter’s systems, following an unplanned early landing during its previous flight.
The Right Stuff
Long before Ingenuity’s historic first flight on Mars, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and their collaborators at AeroVironment Inc. were already moving the boundaries of human knowledge and aeronautic achievement with