Ingenuity was the first helicopter to fly over the surface of our reddish neighbor, and it did so with the very important goal of showing that It was possible to perform powered and fully controlled flight in the atmosphere of Mars without any problem. This vehicle was able to exceed the expectations of its creators, as it ended up making many more flights than originally planned.

It is important to remember that the atmosphere of Mars is much less dense than that of Earth (about 100 times less) and that the gravity on this planet It corresponds to only 37% of the gravity of our planetmeaning that anything there is much lighter and therefore will need much less power to move, but also more precise and careful control.

Originally, this helicopter was supposed to serve as a technological demonstration on Mars and made a total of 5 flights in a period of 30 days. That was the goal, but in the end this plane, which, as I said, was the first to fly in another world, It remained operational for almost three years, making no more than 72 flights and remained in the air for more than two hours.

Thanks to these tests, scientists obtained very valuable information about aerodynamic keys for operation on the surface of Mars, and with them they were able to better outline the characteristics that must be met by future aircraft that will fly through the Martian sky on upcoming missions. The value of Ingenuity’s work is invaluable.

All of his flights were going perfectly until the fateful outcome occurred on January 18th. The helicopter began a new flight over the surface of Mars and after reaching 12 meters of height and maintaining it for almost 5 seconds, began its descent. Unfortunately, when it was 1 meter from the surface It lost contact with the rover and crashed to the ground.

Due to the crash, the connection to Ingenuity was lost until the next day. When they reunited, NASA retrieved the information she had gathered and confirmed that one of her blades had broken, marking the end of her adventure of flying above the Martian surface. His farewell is now a reality, although as I said, this helicopter saying goodbye through the front dooras it made 14 times more flights than originally planned.