NASA's Mars Helicopter is dead, so pour one in for creativity

After almost 3 years on Surface of Mars, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter He died. NASA The agency is investigating the cause of the helicopter's death, but the agency He says Ingenuity clipped one of its wings, so to speak, after one of its rotor blades hit the ground, meaning the Mars helicopter could no longer fly.

the cleverness It may now be operationally dead, but the helicopter has shattered its initial expectations. Originally intended to be a technical experimental device, it was scheduled to perform five flyby missions over 30 days on the Red Planet. But Ingenuity has far exceeded its planned lifetime, completing 72 flight missions in less than three years. I'll leave NASA Director Bill Nelson rightly sings his praises:

Among Ingenuity's accomplishments, some include being the first helicopter on another planet, as well as flying in the atmosphere of Mars, which has an atmosphere less than one percent the size of Earth's. Ingenuity recorded approximately 129 minutes of flight and covered a distance of 10.5 miles during those missions, according to the British newspaper “Daily Mail”. NASA. It reached a maximum height of 78.7 feet.

That doesn't sound like much, but then again, the Ingenuity is only designed to do missions at up to 15 feet. The chopper is also small, measuring 19 inches high, with a four-foot blade and weighing four pounds. She had to be young to be a part of it perseverance The load, spreads from her belly when rover Landed on Mars. cleverness He acted as an aerial scout, eyeing dangers in the area rover track And send that information to NASA.

But one autonomous helicopter flight ended with the sight of a broken rotor blade. The broken tip of the carbon fiber blade can be seen in the shadows, which does not bode well for the small helicopter. Indeed, RIP, ingenuity.

Like Bill Nelson He saidIt's a bittersweet send-off. On the one hand, the little helicopter is dead. A flightless bird on the barren surface of Mars. It's a tragedy almost befitting one Ray Bradbury Mars Chronicles. On the other hand, the Ingenuity project achieved much more than NASA had hoped to achieve. Nelson put it best when he concluded NASA's announcement: “So, thank you, Ingenuity.”