NASA had a busy 2024 , overseeingspace station operations , monitoringa slew of ongoing mission , preparing forupcoming Artemis lunar flights , andmuch more .

It also begin the twelvemonth with a amply functioning chopper on Mars .

cleverness arrived on the red major planet in February 2021 , together with NASA ’ Perseverance rover . In April of that year , Ingenuitybuzzed its path into the disc booksby becoming the first aircraft to achieve power , controlled escape on another planet .

The plucky eggbeater continued to wow fans for almost three year as it take progressively complex escape across the red satellite , with its in high spirits - pep pill rotor helping it to comfortably handle an atmosphere well thinner than Earth ’s .

During many of its flights , Ingenuity used its onboard television camera to map the martian surface . The data was used to assist observe places of scientific interest that the Perseverance bird of passage could then explore , and also to find secure path for the bird of passage to make it to those sites .

But on January 6 , 2024 , in a planetary house of the more serious trouble to arrive , Ingenuity perform an exigency landing when its onboard software and sailing camera had trouble making horse sense of the featureless terrain beneath it . Its operators at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL ) in Southern California sent up educational activity for a subsequent flight on January 18 . But the 32 - second hover release out to be its last . In a post - flight judgment , image taken by cleverness and beamed back to Earth record impairment to the eggbeater blade that meant it would be ineffective to fly again .

It turned out that similar to the previous escape , Ingenuity ’s navigation system get down to shinny soon after lifting off . “ Data sent down during flight of stairs 72 shows that , around 20 seconds after takeoff , the sailing organisation could n’t find enough surface feature to track,”JPL said latterly . This led to an off - balance , knockout landing that broke the chopper ’s blades .

It was a semisweet moment for the team members at JPL . Although upset at Ingenuity ’s foundation , they were delighted with the mission ’s many accomplishment . After all , Ingenuity was originally expected to take just five flights over 30 days , but ended up far exceeding expectations by fly 128.8 flying minute across 10.5 miles ( 17.0 kilometers ) in a total of 72 flight , and reaching altitude as high as 78.7 ft ( 24 meter ) .

On January 25 , NASA foreman Bill Nelson announcedthe end of Ingenuity ’s primary military mission . “ The historical journey of Ingenuity , the first aircraft on another satellite , has come in to end , ” Nelson said . “ That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and help NASA do what we do best — make the impossible , potential . ”

calendar week later on , however , it emerged that the hardy chopper was down but not out . Although it can no longer get airborne , Ingenuity’sonboard computer is still workingand able to gather weather condition and avionics trial data point on a weekly cornerstone that it charge to the Perseverance roamer , which is still in touch with JPL .

“ The weather information could benefit future explorers of the carmine satellite , ” JPL say , adding that the additional avionics data is already proving utilitarian to engineers working on future designs of aircraft and other vehicles for future Mars missions .