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NASA’s Mars helicopter, first to fly on another world, ends marathon mission with rotor damage
Designed to fly just five times over 30 days, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter lasted nearly three years, soaring across the surface of Mars and logging 72 flights before a hard or tilted landing that damaged one or more rotors forced flight controllers to finally bring the marathon mission to a close.
Just as the Wright brothers “unlocked the skies on Earth…we all truly believe that Ingenuity has done the same for Mars, and we couldn’t be prouder of our little, tough trailblazer,” Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said Thursday.
“While Ingenuity is not going to fly again, new generations of Mars helicopters are on the drawing board, and we’re excited for what the future will hold in the skies of Mars.”
NASA
Tipping the scales at just 4 pounds, Ingenuity was built at JPL and carried to Mars attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover, which landed on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021. To keep costs down, the solar-powered helicopter was built with mostly off-the-shelf components.
Shortly after the rover’s landing on the floor of Jezero Crater, the helicopter was dropped to the surface and on April 19, 2021, it lifted off on the first of five planned test flights to demonstrate the feasibility of flying in the thin Martian atmosphere.
On Earth, helicopters typically can’t generate enough lift to fly above about 25,000 feet, said JPL Director Laurie Leshin. On Mars, she said, the atmosphere is roughly equivalent to an altitude of 80,000 to 90,000 feet on Earth.
Citing a tongue-in-cheek engineering maxim, Leshin said Ingenuity went through the “three phases of a bold idea.”
“First, it’s ridiculed. Second, it’s violently opposed. And third, it’s accepted as being self-evident,” she said. “And in this case, the bold idea was that we could fly a helicopter on Mars … where nobody thought it was possible.”
The mission requirement called for just five flights, but engineers held out hope the small drone would exceed expectations, and it did just that. After its seventh flight, NASA began using it as a scout for Perseverance, flying ahead and relaying imagery of upcoming routes to mission planners at JPL.
And so, for weeks, then months, and finally nearly three years, Ingenuity soldiered on, making repeated trips above the floor of Jezero Crater where Perseverance is looking for signs of past habitability, and storing rock and soil samples for eventual return to Earth.
But on Jan. 18, shortly after Ingenuity made an emergency landing at the end of its 71st flight, controllers sent commands to carry out a short vertical flight to help determine its precise location in relatively featureless terrain.
That terrain, with few surface landmarks, may have confused Ingenuity’s flight computer and prompted it to bring flight 71 to a quick conclusion, and to then stand by for instructions from Earth.
NASA
In any case, the helicopter took off on flight 72 as planned, reaching an altitude of 40 feet. It hovered for 4.5 seconds and then began its descent.
But at an altitude of 3 feet or so, Ingenuity dropped out of contact with flight controllers. Communications were restored the next day, and imagery reaching Earth a few days later showed that at least one of its high-speed rotors was damaged, presumably due to an off-kilter landing.
The outer 25% to 35% of a helicopter’s rotors generate the lion’s share of the lift, and the blades must be balanced with high precision to avoid catastrophic vibrations. A photo showing the shadow of one rotor revealed its tip had been torn away, presumably by impact with the Martian surface.
“Because we think we’ve lost about 25% of one of the blades, that means we’ve just lost a massive chunk of our thrust capacity,” Tzanetos told reporters. Even if the blades were somehow perfectly balanced despite the damage, Ingenuity’s ability to precisely control roll and pitch would be compromised.
“So all of that leads us to believe that we will not be able to fly anymore,” Tzanetos said.
Thursday night marked 1,000 slightly longer Martian days, or sols, since Ingenuity was dropped onto the Red Planet’s surface. Engineers remain in radio contact and may try to briefly spin the blades to get a better view of the rotors. But eventually, as Perseverance continues its exploration and moves farther and farther away, contact will be lost.
With an unexpectedly long mission like Ingenuity’s “there’s always that piece in the back you’re head, you know, today could be the last day,” Tzanetos said. “…So that was the initial moment, obviously, of sadness, seeing that photo come down and pop on screen.
“But that’s very quickly replaced with happiness and a feeling of celebration for what we pulled off. It’s really remarkable the journey that she’s been on and worth celebrating every single one of those sols.”
Frito-Lay is recalling a limited number of 13 oz. bags of Lay’s Classic Potato Chips after being alerted by a consumer contact that the product may contain undeclared milk.
The bags of chips affected by recall were distributed to certain retail stores and e-commerce distributors in Oregon and Washington and were available for sale beginning Nov. 3, 2024.
“Those with an allergy or severe sensitivity to milk run the risk of a serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume the recalled product,” the Food and Drug Administration said in the recall notice posted Thursday.
No allergic reactions related to the recall have been reported, according to the recall. Additionally, no other Lay’s products, flavors, sizes or variety packs are affected.
FDA
The recalled chips include Lay’s Classic Potato Chips, in flexible 13 oz. (368.5 grams) bags with UPC code 28400 31041, a “Guaranteed Fresh” date of 11 Feb 2025, and one of either two manufacturing codes: 6462307xx or 6463307xx.
General guidelines from the FDA advise consumers who have purchased any recalled food to dispose of the product or return it to the retailer for a full refund.
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What is the debt ceiling? Here’s why Trump wants Congress to abolish it before he takes office
Washington — President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and billionaire Elon Musk blew up a GOP-backed deal to fund federal agencies into March, raising the pressure on Republican congressional leaders to craft a plan to avert a government shutdown just before the holidays.
In a statement Wednesday, Trump and Vance lambasted the agreement for including provisions favored by Democrats. But the incoming president and vice president also added a new, significant wrinkle to negotiations when they urged Congress to raise or abolish the debt ceiling now, instead of next year.
“Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch,” Trump and Vance said in their statement. “If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration? Let’s have this debate now.”
What is the debt ceiling?
Set by Congress, the debt ceiling, or limit, is the maximum amount of money the U.S. Treasury is authorized to borrow to pay debts incurred by the federal government. Lifting the debt ceiling does not authorize new spending, but instead lets the government spend money on obligations that Congress has already been approved.
Failing to address the debt ceiling could lead the U.S. to default on its debt, which would have devastating effects on the economy. The government has never defaulted, and the Treasury typically uses accounting moves, known as “extraordinary measures,” to delay breaching the debt ceiling.
While raising the debt ceiling used to be routine, legislation addressing it has in recent years been used as leverage to force policy concessions and fuel debates over government spending.
Congress last addressed the debt ceiling in June 2023 as part of a legislative package negotiated by President Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. That deal suspended the debt ceiling through Jan., 1, 2025, ensuring any fight over it would take place after the 2024 elections.
The Treasury Department will likely implement extraordinary measures to stave off a default in the new year. It will also announce an “X date,” the estimated point at which the government will no longer be able to pay its obligations. The Economic Policy Innovation Center, a conservative think tank, projected in an analysis released Monday that it’s possible the debt limit will be reached by June 16.
While the Treasury Department’s use of extraordinary measures would give Congress more time to address the debt ceiling, Trump is now urging lawmakers to take action now, before he takes office.
Why does Trump want to raise the debt ceiling?
The president-elect will come into office with a legislative to-do list that includes securing the border and extending provisions of his signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was enacted in 2017 and overhauled the tax code. But a fight over the debt ceiling could complicate efforts by the Republican-led House and Senate to focus on those legislative initiatives and pass them quickly.
Trump is urging lawmakers to eliminate the debt ceiling altogether, a position that some prominent Democrats have endorsed in the past.
“Number one, the debt ceiling should be thrown out entirely,” Trump said in a phone interview Thursday with CBS News’ Robert Costa. “Number two, a lot of the different things they thought they’d receive [in a recently proposed spending deal] are now going to be thrown out, 100 percent. And we’ll see what happens. We’ll see whether or not we have a closure during the Biden administration. But if it’s going to take place, it’s going to take place during Biden, not during Trump.”
Trump separately told ABC News that “there won’t be anything approved unless the debt ceiling is done with,” indicating any spending deal to prevent a shutdown must address the debt limit.
“If we don’t get it, then we’re going to have a shutdown, but it’ll be a Biden shutdown, because shutdowns only [injure] the person who’s president,” he told ABC News.
Whether Republicans and Democrats would go along with such a plan, though, is far from clear. GOP lawmakers in both chambers have opposed raising the debt ceiling without spending reforms, and debates over the debt limit often give way to broader fights over the federal budget, which conservatives in Congress have said is bloated and should be reduced. Plus, Democrats still control the Senate and the White House.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Wednesday that shutting down the government would harm families and endanger services Americans rely on.
“Republicans need to stop playing politics with this bipartisan agreement or they will hurt hardworking Americans and create instability across the country,” she said. “President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Vance ordered Republicans to shut down the government and they are threatening to do just that — while undermining communities recovering from disasters, farmers and ranchers, and community health centers.”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries suggested Democrats would not go along with a plan pushed by Republicans to raise the debt limit.
“GOP extremists want House Democrats to raise the debt ceiling so that House Republicans can lower the amount of your Social Security check. Hard pass,” the New York Democrat wrote on the social media platform Bluesky.
Jeffries also told reporters “the debt limit issue and discussion is premature at best.”
