NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, has exceeded everyone’s expectations for what this tiny vehicle is capable of doing. Originally designed for up to 90 seconds of flight over 5 flights, it has made 28 flights as of the end of April, with a total flying time of nearly one hour, covering over 4 miles of ground as high as 39 feet in altitude and as fast as 12.3 MPH. Its main mission was to demonstrate the first powered, controlled flight on another planetary body. Having swiftly accomplished that goal it received a new mission as a scout for the Perseverance rover’s science targets. Now in its second year of operation, it is nearing Martian winter, and daily sunlight levels are diminishing. The Ingenuity operations team never expected the copter to last this long but have adapted their approach to power management, letting it shut down each night when overnight temperatures drop below 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and wake up and reset itself each morning. All of these amazing accomplishments are a testament to the teams that built and operate this incredible machine.

In a recent flight, Ingenuity spotted the backshell and parachute that were discarded during Perseverance’s descent to the surface last February. This imagery is of particular interest to the Mars Sample Return team, who is keen to know how the structure and materials performed during entry. Perseverance, or Percy, is equipped with 43 collection tubes for rock and soil core samples to be left on the surface for return to Earth for analysis in a series of missions starting later this decade. In other Percy news, since February, the rover has had a rock lodged in one of its wheels that has been tagging along for over 5 miles of driving.