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Space
Space
Science
Brett Tingley

After crashing on Mars, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter could live on as a weather station for 20 years

A small dual-rotor helicopter lays dormant on a reddish-orange sand dune.

Ingenuity may be down, but it's not out.

Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) gave an update on the downed Ingenuity Mars helicopter on Wednesday (Dec. 11) during the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington, D.C. After traveling to Mars attached to the Perseverance rover, Ingenuity began a test flight campaign to prove that powered flight in the thin Martian atmosphere was possible. After almost three years of operating on the Red Planet, Ingenuity crashed during its 72nd flight on Jan. 18, 2024, suffering rotor damage that rendered it incapable of ever flying again.

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