The wreck of NASA’s crashed Mars Ingenuity helicopter could have a brand new purpose for the next twenty years.
The helicopter was retired from service earlier last year after it crashed during its 72nd flight.
It seemed like that was it for the copter which is fondly known as ‘Ginny’, and it was thought by many that its days exploring Mars were done.
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However, NASA has revealed that Ginny now has a new lease of life and the helicopter’s space travel is far from over.
The helicopter spent 208 days traveling to Mars and first landed on the Red Planet back in 2021.
Part of its tasks was exploration to help those of us back on Earth to better understand Mars.
According to the space agency, the helicopter was able to successfully fly ‘in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere’, and during those flights it previewed ‘areas of Mars of possible interest for the Perseverance rover to explore’.
NASA went on to say that Ginny ‘paved the way for future aerial explorers at Mars and, potentially, other space destinations’.
On the website, NASA said: “Originally designed as a technology demonstration to perform no more than five test flights over 30 days, Ingenuity quickly proved it was capable of even more than NASA imagined. Its flights became longer, higher, faster, and more adventurous. Ingenuity later took on another assignment as an operations demonstration to serve as an aerial scout to preview possible areas for the Perseverance rover to explore.
“Over the course of its mission life, the helicopter completed 128.8 flying minutes, covering 10.5 miles (17.0 kilometers), and reaching altitudes as high as 78.7 feet (24.0 meters).”
In three years, Ginny completed 72 flights but that all changed in January 2024 when it crashed and became stranded.
However, NASA has since found out that the helicopter’s battery and sensors are all still working which means it is still able to carry out important work.
While the likelihood that Ginny will ever fly again is slim to none, it will still be able to collect data on Mars and send it back to Earth.
This includes things like recording weather information in order to give scientists useful insight on the conditions their other rovers are facing and will come in handy for the future of deep space travel.
NASA said: “The avionics data is already proving useful to engineers working on future designs of aircraft and other vehicles for the Red Planet.”