NASA Reveals Why The Mars Helicopter Crashed - The First Air Crash Investigation on Another World

This morning scientists and engineers from JPL & NASA presented their investigation into the crash of Ingenuity, the Mars Helicopter which had pushed the limits of technology over its 3 year career.
The root cause was the navigation system became unable to track features over the bland terrain where the accident happened leading to a loss of control.
The full investigation will be published next month but you can watch the presentation from the AGU Meeting

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[Absaalookemensch]

The Mars Aviation Administration (MAA) has released their investigation. It's pilot error. Loss of situational awareness. Mars aviation has a 1.4% accident rate.

[MeirMaor]

I get it is a serious accident but isn't a multi year suspension of all flights on the planet a bit harsh?

[mitchellh]

As a helicopter instructor, I joke all the time that "We've really run out of ways to crash helicopters". And that now holds true even to other planets! Flat light, or glassy water conditions both still cause accidents due to pilots losing situational awareness of their altitude due to the lack of terrain features.

[mayshack]

Days since helicopter crash on Mars: -10 Billion years- 0

[RealBelisariusCawl]

A remotely piloted helicopter on another world flew missions for three years with no maintenance and only THEN failed.

Remarkable achievement.

[feynthefallen]

I just realized that Ingenuity was essentially just an optical mouse with a propeller on top.

[Lukas]

I love that you answer the "clickbait" question in 30 seconds. Proves your quality

[TobiKellner]

My favorite Ingenuity fact:
The batteries, an extremely important component as power and energy density is a major performance factor, were six off-the-shelf Sony VTC4 Li-ion 18650s which cost around $5 each back then (and less today). Because sometimes there really isn't anything better than the cheap stuff.

[GenoLoma]

Design requirements: 5 test flights over 3 months..
Fabrication outcome: 72 flights spanning 3 years, with potential to analyse the surrounding environment for a further 20+ years..

Astounding, yet considering the Voyager craft are still operating, I'm not surprised.
Bravo NASA techs, bravo 👍

[QuantumHistorian]

So it crashed because it thought Mars was just too boring?

[TerryLawrence]

First ever, 100% verifiable, investigation of an alien spacecraft ever!! Aliens have landed on Mars!

[brianhaygood]

Man, I want a YouTube channel so successful that I can still be respected while wearing a bathrobe. Scott can absolutely pull this off.

[henkvandenbergh]

What I like most about this Mars helicopter is that some day some engineer asked management "Hey, can we try this?", and management saying YES, without going through congress to do the design for them like Congress did with SLS and Artemis.
Congratulations to NASA and their Mars team, awesome job.

[gecho]

My drone crashed into a tree in autonomous mode a few weeks ago due to visually bland terrain. A blanket of fresh snow not ideal for camera based position holding.

[HamburgerAmy]

72 flights on another planet is simply astounding.

imagine being able to tell von braun we flew a remote controlled helicopter on mars, that man would instantly sit you down to have a detailed 14 hour conversation about it

[MauserMatt]

No one has brought up bird strike yet? Obviously a bird strike!

[SpaceStickwithSpaceTick]

So wasteful, as a drone pilot I would just walk and go get it. The walk might take 17, 250, 000 hours but it sounds like the drone was pretty expensive.

[crogeny]

Waiting for Blancolirio's take on this crash 😄

[Willy_Tepes]

NEVER fly so low over the dunes. The sand worms are quick.

[pompeymonkey]

An astronaut having their picture taken by a still operating Ingenuity would be even cooler!