The Ingenuity crash on Mars: First report of an incident on another planet

13.01.2025/00/30 XNUMX:XNUMX    784

Images obtained after communication was restored showed Ingenuity on the surface with damaged rotors beyond repair.

After analyzing the available data, engineers on Earth believe that they have determined the cause of the accident.

For effective navigation, the helicopter was equipped with a downward-facing camera that takes images of the Martian surface at 30 frames per second.

The navigation system uses the timestamps of each shot to compare what the camera is seeing with what it should be seeing at that time. If the data does not match, the helicopter makes adjustments to its position, speed and pitch.

The camera selects such objects on the surface of Mars as textures or stones (and there are many of them on Mars). But when the helicopter took off on its 72nd flight, it found itself in a sandy area of ​​Jezero Crater, where there were almost no surface features.

See also:  The largest solar flare in 2 decades caused a power outage

As revealed in May 2021, when the helicopter suddenly lost control, the uninterrupted operation of this camera was critical to Ingenuity's ability to determine its speed. Ingenuity then managed to regain control.

In January 2024, the camera failed to find any surface features to track, so Ingenuity was unable to determine how fast it should be descending. He hit the ground faster than necessary. This in itself was not a problem; the problem occurred after that.

Latest news:  Astrophotographer creates perfect image of solar system's planets parade

According to NASA's reconstruction, the force of the impact caused the helicopter to pitch and spin, causing stress in all four rotors, which broke at their weakest point—about a third of the way from the tip of each blade. This damage caused the rotor system to vibrate, tearing one of the blades completely off at its base, overloading the helicopter's electronics and cutting off communication.

See also:  NASA wants people to pretend to be Martians all year long

The little helicopter will no longer fly. But its other instruments are still working, allowing it to receive data on both the weather on Mars and its own equipment. Both types of data will help in planning future explorations of Mars.




"Because Ingenuity was designed to be an affordable vehicle with heavy computing power requirements, we were the first mission to use commercial mobile phone processors in deep space," says engineer Teddy Tsanetos of JPL.

Latest news:  Climate warming forces plants to compete with each other

"We're approaching four years of continuous operation, which shows that not everything has to be bigger, heavier and radiation-resistant to work in the harsh conditions of Mars."

A technical report on the accident is due to be published in the coming weeks.