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Nasa’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which made history by achieving the first powered flight on another world, has suffered mission-ending damage.
In a statement, Nasa said the aircraft was forced to perform an “emergency landing” that damaged its rotors.
The space agency’s Bill Nelson said the aircraft was “the little helicopter that could” and had racked up far more flights than had been intended.
He said Ingenuity had “paved the way for future flight in our Solar System”.
Ingenuity is said to remain “upright” but images showed that “one or more of its rotor blades” were damaged and it was “no longer capable of flight”.
Nasa said the circumstances were being investigated.
“Ingenuity has paved the way for future flight in our Solar System, and it’s leading the way for smarter, safer human missions to Mars and beyond,” Mr Nelson, the Nasa administrator, said in a video message on social media.
“That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped Nasa do what we do best – make the impossible, possible.”
Ingenuity reached the Red Planet in February 2021 by riding on the belly of the Perseverance rover.
It was meant to be on a short technology demonstration to prove flight was possible in the ultra-thin Martian atmosphere.
The
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