In Pictures: Three Years Of Ingenuity

Ingenuity spent almost three years supporting the Mars 2020 Perseverance team and demonstrating operations for future aerial scouts. Originally designed to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, the first aircraft on another world performed 72 flights, totaling 128.8 min. in the air.

Ingenuity flew on Mars for the first time on April 19, 2021. The helicopter climbed to an altitude of 10 ft., hovered and then landed on the planet’s surface.

On the one-year anniversary of its first flight on Mars, Ingenuity captured images of the landing gear that brought it and the Perseverance rover to Jezero Crater. The demolished backshell appears in the foreground and the parachute in the distance. The image was taken during Ingenuity’s 26th flight on April 19, 2022.

This color-enhanced image of the Castell Henllys region in Jezero Crater was taken by Ingenuity during the rotorcraft’s 48th flight on March 21, 2023, at an altitude of about 40 ft. Scientists were looking for evidence of “blocky deposits”—rounded boulders ranging from about 12- 40 in. dia.—indicating the past presence of a high-energy water stream. The aerial image from the helicopter allowed them to measure the size and shape of all the boulders, something that could not be done from rover imagery alone.

Following a survey of the crater floor where Perseverance landed, the rover headed toward Jezero’s well-defined alluvial fan. To get there required a long drive around Seitah, a mitten-shaped outcrop filled with sand and rough-looking rocks. Ingenuity flew straight across the outcrop, taking images that will help scientists understand its age, history and relationship with another igneous geologic unit found on the crater floor. The crashed backshell appears in the background.

Orbital imagery showed distinct fracture patterns in the floor of Jezero Crater, which scientists speculated may be from minerals left by water moving through the rocks—exactly the type of place that could hold evidence of ancient life. However, a scouting mission by Ingenuity showed the fractures were not the hoped-for juicy astrobiology targets. The rover’s science team saved about two months of rover travel time to focus on other targets.

Flight 72 was Ingenuity’s last on Mars following the breaking of rotor blades, a shadow of which is visible in this Jan. 25 photo.

The Ingenuity team hoped for five flights in the Mars helicopter logbook. They ended up with two volumes. Over its 72 flights, Ingenuity covered 10.5 mi and reached altitudes as high as 78.7 ft.