Remembering Ingenuity’s historic flights on Mars

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An image showing Ingenuity’s damaged rotor blade after its 72nd flight on Jan. 18, 2024. | Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter’s time on Mars came to an end last week. Images of Ingenuity’s shadow showed that its last flight damaged one or more of its rotor blades.

Ingenuity began as a technology demonstration. NASA hoped it would get at least five flights over 30 days out of the helicopter. In the end, Ingenuity completed 72 flights over almost three years. It flew more than 14 times farther than NASA originally planned and logged more than two hours of total flight time.

“Ingenuity was designed for up to five flights over 30 Martian days. As we moved onto an extended mission for Ingenuity, we hoped to fly Ingenuity for a few more months, which unbelievably turned into years,” Ingenuity team lead Joshua Anderson told The Robot Report. “After achieving 72 flights and surviving through a frigid Martian winter, I can confidently say that Ingenuity has far surpassed even our team’s most optimistic dreams!”

Ingenuity was the first aircraft to perform powered, controlled flight on another planet. It set a distance record on its 25th flight, covering 2,310 feet (704 meters), an altitude record on Flight 61 at 78.7 feet (24 meters), and a groundspeed record on Flight 62 when it traveled at 22.3 mph (10 meters per second).

“The most exciting achievement to me is that Ingenuity’s success has opened the door for flight on other worlds. I can’t wait to see the Dragonfly mission one day fly on Titan, and future aircrafts making unique discoveries on Mars,” Anderson said.

While Ingenuity won’t be taking to the skies again, its work isn’t done. The Ingenuity team will perform final tests on its systems and download the remaining imagery and data from its onboard memory.

“The Ingenuity team will be working on retrieving the remaining flight data onboard Ingenuity and collecting diagnostic data about the health of the rotor system,” Anderson said. “As the project wraps up, we’ll move onto other exciting projects at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.”

Ingenuity was such a success that NASA has already made plans to send more helicopters to Mars. It announced in 2022 that it would be swapping out its Sample Fetch Rovers for two drones for the Mars Sample Return campaign. During the campaign, two Ingenuity-like helicopters will retrieve samples from Perseverance if it is unable to travel to the lander.

NASA will equip each helicopter with mobility wheels on its landing legs and one robotic arm. The helicopters will use their robotic arms to retrieve samples from Perseverance and transport them back to the lander. Eventually, NASA will return these samples to Earth to study them.

To learn more about Ingenuity’s achievements on Mars, check out the timeline below.

April 3, 2021: Ingenuity touches down on Mars
After reaching Mars on the Perseverance Rove’s belly nearly one month earlier, Ingenuity touched down on Mars on April 3, 2021. The helicopter weighs just 4 lbs. (1.8 kg) and cost $80 million to build. While attached to Perseverance, Ingenuity fed off the rover’s nuclear-powered system to charge itself and stay warm. After separating from Perseverance, Ingenuity drew power from the sun via its solar panels. Ingenuity used a built-in heater to survive the freezing cold nights on Mars, where temperatures can go as low as -130 degrees Fahrenheit.

April 19, 2021: Ingenuity completes first flight
Ingenuity made history when it completed the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. At 3:34 AM EDT on April 19, 2021, Ingenuity climbed to its prescribed maximum altitude of 10 feet (3 meters). It hovered in the air for 30 seconds before descending back to the surface of Mars. It was in the air for a total of 39.1 seconds.

Ingenuity’s initial flight demonstration was autonomous. It was piloted by onboard guidance, navigation, and control systems running algorithms. You can relive the first flight by watching the video below.

May 7, 2021: Tech demo phase ends
Ingenuity completed its fifth flight, and first one-way flight, on May 7, 2021 to end its technology demonstration phase. After the flight, Ingenuity became an operations demonstration focused on investigating the helicopter’s limitations.

July 24, 2021: Ingenuity completes first scouting flight
Once Ingenuity finished its technology demonstration phase, NASA was able to use it to scout for the Perseverance Rover. This let the Perseverance team be in two places at one time.

April 8, 2022: Ingenuity sets flight distance record
On its 25th flight on Mars, Ingenuity set a new flight distance record. On April 8, 2022, Ingenuity covered a distance of 2,310 feet (704 meters) at a speed of 12 MPH (5.5 meters per second). This was its longest and fastest flight on the planet at the time.

April 19, 2022: Spotting Perseverance’s landing hardware
Ingenuity on April 19, 2022 spotted the parachute and cone-shaped backshell from Perseverance’s descent. The 70.5-foot-wide parachute helped the rover land on Mars after making its way through the Martian atmosphere at nearly 12,500 MPH. The rover hit the surface of Mars at 78 MPH, with protection from its backshell. Perseverance had previously imaged the debris, but NASA said Ingenuity’s images provided more detail.

Debris from Perseverance’s landing captured by Ingenuity from an altitude of 26 feet. | Source: NASA/JPL

“Perseverance had the best-documented Mars landing in history, with cameras showing everything from parachute inflation to touchdown,” Ian Clark, former Perseverance systems engineer and now Mars Sample Return ascent phase lead, said. “But Ingenuity’s images offer a different vantage point. They either reinforce that our systems worked as we think they worked or provide even one dataset of engineering information we can use for Mars Sample Return planning, it will be amazing. And if not, the pictures are still phenomenal and inspiring.”

April 13, 2023: Ingenuity completes 50th flight
Ingenuity flew more than 1,057.2 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds during its 50th flight. It landed near the 0.5-mile-wide Belva Crater on Mars.

October 5, 2023: Ingenuity sets altitude record
Ingenuity hit its highest altitude ever during its 61st flight. It flew to an altitude of 78.7 feet (24 meters) to check out Martian wind patterns.

October 12, 2023: Ingenuity sets land speed record
Just days after setting its altitude record, Ingenuity set a ground speed record. During Flight 62, it traveled 22.3 MPH (10 meters per second) as it scouted for the Perseverance Rover.

“The data will be extremely useful in fine-tuning our aero-mechanical models of how rotorcraft behave on Mars,” said Travis Brown, Ingenuity’s chief engineer at JPL. “On Earth, such testing is usually performed in the first few flights. But that’s not where we’re flying. You have to be a little more careful when you’re operating that far away from the nearest repair shop, because you don’t get any do-overs.”

January 18, 2024: Ingenuity’s final flight
Ingenuity’s 72nd and final flight took place on January 18, 2024. NASA designed the flight to be a quick pop-up vertical flight to test the helicopter’s systems after an unplanned landing on its previous flight. Ingenuity climbed to the planned altitude, but ran into trouble when coming down.

January 25, 2024: NASA retires Ingenuity
Images of Ingenuity’s shadow showed damage to at least one of its rotors. NASA said the helicopter would be unable to fly again after almost three years on Mars.

“The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best – make the impossible, possible. Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond.”

“At NASA JPL, innovation is at the heart of what we do,” stated Laurie Leshin, director of NASA JPL. “Ingenuity is an exemplar of the way we push the boundaries of what’s possible every day. I’m incredibly proud of our team behind this historic technological achievement and eager to see what they’ll invent next.”