Mars Mission: The helicopter’s snapped-off rotor blade on Mars

The blade was broken—aand, still unforged, it’s been found on Mars.

Space fans scouring the raw images from NASA’s Perseverance rover recently spotted the broken helicopter blade from Ingenuity lying on the sands of Mars.

Ingenuity is permanently grounded as a result of the blade-snapping incident, a hard landing that occurred at the end of its Jan. 18 flight on Mars.

“Nestled in the vibrant red Martian sand, a lonely blade from NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter lies about 15 meters [50 feet] from the aircraft’s final resting place,” the nonprofit Planetary Society wrote Tuesday (Feb. 27) on X, formerly Twitter.

Geovisual design student Simeon Schmauß also processed the Perserverance imagery, captured by the rover’s powerful SuperCam instrument, into a composite view that shows both the helicopter and its now distant blade. Schmauß shared the results on X, visible below as well.

Ingenuity’s flying days ended after 72 flights—67 more than the five originally planned for its technology-demonstrating mission.

The 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) drone was the first vehicle ever to take flight on Mars after landing with Perseverance in February 2021, and it kept going for nearly three years.

Perseverance imagery downloaded from Mars on Sunday (Feb. 25) showed the broken-off Ingenuity blade. But hidden in shadow in some of the raw imagery was the blade itself, barely visible in the Martian dunes.

The helicopter, operating in Mars’ Jezero Crater, demonstrated flight was not only possible but could be done regularly in the Red Planet’s thin atmosphere. 

After its initial five hops, Ingenuity shifted to a long, extended mission in which it was scouting ahead for Perseverance, which is collecting samples for a possible eventual return to Earth (pending funding and technology development for the Mars sample return campaign, whose budget has been under discussion in Congress lately).

What finally downed Ingenuity was a sandy patch of terrain that did not have rocks or other navigation aids to help the helicopter find its way.

As Ingenuity came in for a landing, the blade snapped as it hit the ground. But the helicopter, managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), had already cemented its legacy as a spaceflight pioneer, agency officials said.

“The NASA JPL team didn’t just demonstrate the technology,” Tiffany Morgan, deputy director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, said during a Jan. 31 webcast tribute to Ingenuity.

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“They demonstrated an approach that, if we use it in the future, will really help us to explore other planets and be as awe-inspiring and amazing as Ingenuity has been.”

February 27, 2024

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter used its black-and-white navigation camera to capture this video showing the shadows of its rotor blades turning on Feb. 11, 2024.

Engineers planned the video to get more information about damage that was sustained by the rotor blades after a rough landing occurred during the helicopter’s 72nd flight on Jan. 18, 2024.

This video shows that Ingenuity’s upper rotor, the first rotor seen in this video, has a rotor blade missing. The blade appears to have separated near the mast.

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the project for the agency. It is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development.

AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Martin Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System. JPL is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California.