A helicopter surveying Mars for NASA has beamed home an eerie image of the wreckage of the landing gear that protected the drone through its fiery descent towards the surface of the red planet.
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter landed on Mars in February 2021 with the Perseverance rover for a combined land-and-sky surveillance mission.
The unprecedented images show the parachute and cone-shaped backshell that protected the equipment as it made its high-speed impact on the surface of Mars.
Looking at the upright backshell and debris that resulted from it impacting the surface at over 120kph, NASA scientists say the backshell's protective coating appears to have remained intact during the 20,000kph entry into Mars's atmosphere.
Many of the suspension lines connecting the backshell to the parachute are visible and also appear intact.
The parachute canopy shows no signs of damage from the supersonic airflow during inflation.
Earlier, Perseverance had captured the parachute from a distance, but these close-up images are far more valuable to researchers, says Dr Ian Clark, a lead on the mission to preserve Perseverance's Martian sediment and rock samples for future return from Mars.
"Perseverance had the best-documented Mars landing in history, with cameras showing everything from parachute inflation to touchdown," he said.
"But Ingenuity's images offer a different vantage point. If they either reinforce that our systems worked as we think they worked or provide even one dataset of engineering information we can use for Mars Sample Return planning, it will be amazing. And if not, the pictures are still phenomenal and inspiring."
The Mars Sample Return is a multi-mission campaign that would bring Perseverance's samples of rocks, atmosphere and sediment back to Earth for detailed analysis.
Following ancient rivers
The Ingenuity is the first free-flying helicopter to operate on another planet and has been following dry river marks in the Jezero Crater of Mars.
Several kilometres wide, the fan-shaped delta formed where an ancient river spilled into the lake that once filled Jezero Crater.
Rising more than 40 metres above the crater floor and filled with jagged cliffs, angled surfaces, projecting boulders and sand-filled pockets, the delta promises to hold numerous geologic revelations — perhaps even proof that microscopic life existed on Mars billions of years ago, scientists hope.
Upon reaching the delta, Ingenuity's first orders may be to help determine which of two dry river channels Perseverance should climb to reach the top of the delta.
Along with route-planning assistance, data provided by the helicopter will help the Perseverance team pick out potentially rich sample beds for the rover to extract and return to Earth.
