NASA is investigating the Ingenuity helicopter’s final flight on Mars

When the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter finally and , many people thought that would be the last we heard about it. However, NASA engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California are assessing its final flight right now. This is the first-ever performed on a craft on another planet. Ingenuity already had the distinct honor of being the first aircraft to fly on another world.

Ingenuity was only meant to fly five times over 30 days, but it flew for almost three years, clocking 72 total flights. Flight 72, its last, resulted in a crash that caused it to be permanently grounded. All four of its rotor blades snapped as the helicopter fell onto a sand ripple and rolled, permanently grounding it.

Since Ingenuity’s vision navigation system couldn’t find enough surface features in the Jezero Crater to track, it couldn’t land properly. The hard landing likely caused the helicopter to roll, but this tragic final flight isn’t all bad news. Today, scientists and engineers use data from Ingenuity’s flights to work toward a better aircraft design. The is one such example, a rotorcraft that could theoretically fly up to two miles a day.