By Tim Binnall
After nearly three years of cruising the skies over Mars, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter has been grounded for good due to rotor damage. The end of the historic mission, which constituted the first time that an autonomous aircraft had ever taken flight on another world, was announced by the space agency on Thursday. Arriving on the Red Planet aboard the Perseverance rover in February of 2021, Ingenuity far exceeded NASA's expectations as it was only meant to fly five times as a proverbial proof of concept for possible future projects. However, it held up remarkably well and ultimately performed a staggering 72 flights since its initial takeoff in April of 2021.
"That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined," NASA administrator Bill Nelson marveled, crediting the craft with helping the space agency "do what we do best – make the impossible, possible." The end of Ingenuity's mission came about when it finished its 72nd flight on January 18th and, in the process, sustained damage to its rotor blades. "While the helicopter remains upright and in communication with ground controllers," NASA said, "it is no longer capable of flight." Ingenuity will presumably remain where it is on the Red Planet, alongside all manner of other debris that has been left behind on Mars, until some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future when humans arrive on Mars and possibly retrieve the historic craft.