The Most Extreme Flights of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter (Mars Report)

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter pushed aerodynamic limits during the final months of its mission, setting new records for speed, distance, and altitude. Hear from Ingenuity chief engineer Travis Brown on how the data the team collected could eventually be used in future rotorcraft designs.

Ingenuity was originally designed to make up to five flights – but completed 72 before sustaining rotor-blade damage that rendered it unable to fly. NASA announced the end of the helicopter’s mission on Jan. 25, 2024. The maximum altitude achieved by the helicopter during its mission was 79 feet (24 meters), on Flight 61. The maximum groundspeed was 22.4 mph (10 meters per second), reached during Flights 62, 68, and 69. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages operations for Ingenuity and the Perseverance Mars rover.


Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

[Thtiger]

Ingenuity it's one of my most loved mission.... Combining the dream of flying like a bird + on an other planet + doing science. INSANE

[ptonpc]

Rest well Ingenuity. Thank you to all on worked on this.

[Tessarract]

Thanks for everything, Ingenuity. I'm excited to see what else is in store for other missions in the future.

[bentonjackson]

You don't have to convince me that Ingenuity was an incredible achievement!

[DyslexicEngineer]

Ingenuity has truly made me x100 interest in planetary exploration. The potential of flying to explore is something that wasn't even possible 250 years ago on Earth! Thank you JPL, for inspiring future generations, myself included. 💖

[Korokukanas]

Great Job NASA Ingenuity Team!

I should have followed you guys more!

The fact you can use propeller flight on another planet that "supposedly" doesn't have an atmosphere is just INSANE!!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

[FlorianMaeder]

0:51 No metric units? I'm disappointed.

[husaynvohra]

Truly amazing mission.
Congratulations to all the scientists who worked on ingenuity 🎉❤

[robbrookes]

I took notice when I heard that we are now flying on mars. Perserverance and ingenuity have me completely captivated. Thank u to all the wonderful scientist and engineers and anyone else who has created this for all of the world to enjoy. Endlessly fascinating 🇦🇺🇺🇸

[maxplanck]

Ingenuity has transformed what is possible on mars with flight. Now it’s proven you can fly on mars which is far easier than all those hard sharp rocks degrading land transport on mars. Flying missions will be faster and give you clear topographical data and mapping in detail for other ground missions.✌️❤️🇬🇧

[planetsec]

1:47 YES YES!!! LETS GOO I can't wait to see these new concepts fly on Mars just like Ingenuity, I love how NASA now has the ability to explore locations you can't with traditional rovers, who knows what we'll find where rovers can't tread and satellites can't resolve

[Kim_Jong_Un_]

Well done Ingenuity you have paved way for future exploration of the red planet and beyond

[TheGg]

Ingenuity Helicopter is one of NASA's all-time greatest success stories....and we all got to "fly along"! Thanks guys!
Also it seem that now we should design a copter to fly to and retrieve all those sample tubes along with farther recon stuff!

[JohanMsWorld]

When can we expect the next chopper on mars?

[yakdriver]

Ingenuity was an incredible success. When humans begin to have a presence on Mars I hope one day it finds it way back to the Smithsonian. Huge congratulations to the team for this achievement.

[caughtnyfish]

Let’s land people near ingenuity, retrieve it, return it, and have it on display in an international science museum

[footballnewscr]

I want to say our beloved Ingenuity Helicoptor - Thank you, You is the matchstick that lighten and burned up the initial area of boundaries and pushed the boundaries .... hence expanding it. love you

[guruprasadk]

Such an awesome mission. We are glad to see this in our lifetime & more awesome missions to come.
Sad to see Ingenuity in bad shape😓

[djbare]

Kudos to you folks, remarkable work for something that was just a proof of concept, a bit sad ingenuity went down, however it went way beyond its operation perimeters and time thanks to you folks, encore!

[fluxone]

outstanding work - awesome project and results