Eleven months after the Ingenuity helicopter made its final flight on Mars, engineers and scientists at NASA and a private company that helped build the flying vehicle said they have identified what probably caused it to crash on the surface of Mars.

In short, the helicopter’s on-board navigation sensors were unable to discern enough features in the relatively smooth surface of Mars to determine its position, so when it touched down, it did so moving horizontally. This caused the vehicle to tumble, snapping off all four of the helicopter’s blades.

    • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Surely the cost of continuing to crash rovers due to navigation issues out ways this. It would be more an investment. Humanity seems pretty set on going that direction anyway would be useful for all future missions. And surely we can implement a more light weight version compared to the constellations we currently have have. Since they are a bit old