NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is officially retired after completing more than 70 successful flights on Mars. Why? One or more of its rotor blades sustained damage when landing during its most recent flight on January 18.
With all that said, Ingenuity far outlasted its original goal as being just a technology demonstration designed to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days. Not only did it become the first aircraft on another world operate from the Martian surface for almost three years, it performed 72 flights, and flew more than 14 times further than planned while logging over two hours of total flight time.
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The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end. 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,” said Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator.
