NASA announces end of historic mission to Mars

“It is with a bittersweet feeling that I announce that Ingenuity… has completed its final flight on Mars,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a video posted on social media.

Simulation of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter flying on Mars. Photo: NASA

The US space agency said Ingenuity made an “emergency landing” on its final flight. NASA added that during its final flight on January 18, it lost contact with Perseverance, the probe Ingenuity deployed to Mars in 2021.

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory restored communication with Ingenuity the following day, and images taken a few days later showed damage to one of its carbon fiber propellers.

The Perseverance rover carried Ingenuity when it landed on the surface of Mars in February 2021. The mission was originally planned to last just 30 days, but turned into a nearly two-year, 72-flight scientific endeavor.

After Ingenuity's maiden flight in April 2021 — hovering over the Martian surface for 39 seconds — NASA officials hailed the 4-pound solar-powered rover's achievements as helping pave the way for a new mode of exploration on the red planet, as well as Venus and Saturn's moon Titan.

The four-legged, box-shaped aircraft is equipped with a parachute and two propellers. It is designed to fly in the thin Martian atmosphere, which requires more power than similar aircraft on Earth.

On that first flight, it climbed as programmed to reach 10 feet above the surface, then hovered in place while rotating 96 degrees before landing safely. NASA compared it to the Wright brothers' historic first flight in 1903.

Bui Huy (according to NASA, Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/nasa-tuyen-bo-ket-thuc-su-menh-bay-lich-su-tren-sao-hoa-post282552.html