NASA’s Perseverance rover spots grounded Ingenuity helicopter on Mars

Images of the grounded NASA Ingenuity helicopter (nicknamed Ginny) have been shared online by GeoVisual designer Simeon Schmauß.

The Ingenuity helicopter had its last takeoff on January 18 when it crashed into a sand ripple in Neretva Vallis. Due to the thin atmosphere on Mars, the Ingenuity helicopter, and its pair of coaxial counter-rotating rotors, had to spin its enlarged blades between 2400 and 2900 rpm — 10x faster than required on Earth in order to create adequate lift.

Zooming in on Ingenuity’s final resting place among the sand ripples in Neretva Vallis.

Full resolution panorama: https://t.co/jbDkOAM5bB

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon Schmauß #ThanksIngenuity #MarsHelicopter pic.twitter.com/EiBZYYjbZR

— Simeon Schmauß (@stim3on) February 5, 2024

Ginny’s current resting place was spotted by NASA’s Perseverance rover where Schmauß went to work in bringing the full picture to life. In the full-resolution panorama on his Flickr, Schmauß reveals the process: “This panorama was assembled from six images taken by the right Mastcam-Z on Sol 1052. The images were upscaled 2x and color processed to approximately match what the human eye would see.”

NASA elaborated on how the Ingenuity managed to crash even with its terrain sensors and software. “The more featureless the terrain is, the harder it is for Ingenuity to successfully navigate across it. The team believes that the relatively featureless terrain in this region was likely the root cause of the anomalous landing.”

(Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon Schmauß)