Tragic Final Flight Of NASA's Martian Helicopter - Stranded in Neretva Vallis 

people can say what they want about Ingenuity but i stand by my stance that despite the damage its still the best helicoper on the planet.

"On flight number 71 ... of 5" 😂 nice how he put it in the right context

I love the phrasing: "On flight number 71 of 5." That alone shows how much this machine outperformed what NASA would have considered a success!

We get nostalgic about the triumphant period of the Apollo era, and while Ingenuity wasn‘t quite as monumental as that, it was delirious success. A first-ever at a new method of exploration, overfulfilling its mission by a metric gazillion, and all kinds of practical utility from what was supposed to have been a test vehicle. The little guy was a champ.

71/5 is not a bad record. RIP, Inginuity. Thanks for the data.

I imagine there is now a martian with bandaged hand, cursing wildly...

Martians finally managed to throw a rock and hit it. Damn neighbours peeking all the time with their drone.

A wee bit of chest-thumping: "Well done, Ingenuity - not ONCE did you land upside down!"...

Its so sad to see Ingenuity finally go, it was the first to achieve powered flight on Mars and was so incredibly good at it.

My guess is that when the copter landed it had some sideways momentum and the landing feet dug in and the copter tilted to the side. That allowed the blades to hit the sand. because the rotors spin in opposing directions the force cancelled a bit and threw the copter back upright rather than cartwheeling off and completely destroying the rotors That said, the copter ended up in really good shape considering

Us RC Plane people always say our planes have a built in expiration date . Sooner or later, things go wrong and a crash is inevitable. The same was expected for this drone. It actually went way beyond its expected expiration date. If anything, they should be proud of what this drone accomplished. It would be nice to see other drones sent to Mars in the future.

April 2002? Wow Ingenuity has really been there for a long time! 6:23

I worked on the snapdragon 801 chip used in the ingenuity as part of my first job in Qualcomm back in 2012 (testing the PLLs). It’s amazing that the technology was used to send a helicopter to a different planet and performed for 3 years ! Quite sad to see it go but amazed at the feats of engineering that humans have done to get here 🙏🏽👍🏾

704m traverse is mindblowing! Ingenuity will forever be the legendary first space drone that paved the way for all those that will follow... extremely excited for Dragonfly!

I cried for half an hour. Rest in peace little fella!

Man.. this little guy has been following perseverance for like what feels like forever...

In my spare time as a hobby I build and fly drones, and FPV quadcopters, sometimes manually and sometimes with GPS and letting them do their autonomous thing. The fact that NASA was able to fly a drone land it, then recharge it and fly it again so many times in a row is completely utterly insane and amazing on a level I can't even properly explain. Everything about a drone is constantly trying to break and destroy itself and implode in some new and interesting way. If I had a billion dollars I could probably land a human on the moon, with that same billion dollars there's no way in hell I could get an autonomous copter to fly 10 times in a row without crashing. 😅

Flight 72 of *FIVE* Good job, NASA and JPL. You once again gave us 10x the science we paid for. Thank you.

The top down views of Mars surface really gives perspective to the landscape and the rugged beauty of the terrain . A fantastic achievement.

I've just finished building the Lego Perseverance model, which has the Ingenuity helicopter in the kit...might have to buy a set of blades, and damage them....for authenticity

Nonetheless, the designers obviously did an amazing job.

The mere fact that Ingenuity flew at all, is stunning and brilliant. That is flew so many times, and way beyond formal expectations, even more so. Hats off to all involved.

You can't deny that they got their moneys worth out of the little guy. Phenomenal achievement by the team. I'm really looking forward to what the next iteration of Helicopter can achieve building on the experience they have now. Really, it's a very exciting prospect.

71….. of 5. Remarkable. Congrats to everyone involved

I find myself deeply saddened by the realization that I probably won't live to see someone pick up Ingenuity and put it on the pedestal is deserves.

A round of applause for the little chopper that could, did, and then hit everything expected of it out of the park. Excellent work little dude. easily some of the best photos that have ever made it back to earth from the red planet. quite a legacy. I think Ingenuity, Perseverance and Curiosity will end up having quite a few roman numerals after their names. And Im all for that, thats some key tenants of science right there. I have a similar level of affection for it as the old farm truck, did its rated level of civilian service, but somehow ticked the odometer around twice whilst being thrashed and brutalised around the paddocks, with no cause of concern or care for it, but she just kept doing her thing. It wasnt made by Toyota, was it?

I have to say, Ingenuity was so wildly successful that I started to just take for granted that it would always work. I’ll certainly miss the little interplanetary drone that could. It’s wild to realize that, in all likelihood, some distant-future generation of kids will probably see Ingenuity in a museum.

Not really tragic. The mars helicopter wasn't even supposed to last this long. It was only supposed to last 30 days and 3 flights. It lasted for almost 3 years and 72 flights. Now that's impressive. They've done so many experiments and pushing it to its limits with this little guy it will determine the build and functionality of next gen helicopters like the one planned for Titan. The Dragonfly.

Goodbye ingenuity. You did well over the last few years😢

Scott Manley demonstrating what journalists should be doing.

"...because you can't fly on Mars if the rotorblades are not perfectly balanced - as all things should be." I love how Scott can seamlessly integrate cultural references in any given sentence. 😁🤟

I hope the rover gets some closeup photos of Ingenuity.

"It's dead, Jim" 😂 RIP Ingenuity

For a touch of wow factor, that helicopter was flying at an atmospheric pressure equivalent of 98000 - 115000 feet of earth air pressure. So, it buzzed around mars at the same equivalent pressure and atmospheric density that it took the SR-71 flying supersonic speeds to fly at.

Scott, you nailed it: Comparing aeronautical instability with a wobbling washing machine on a trampoline is real ingenuity :D Great video for a great technical and scientific achievement. Well done and all my respect for all the people on earth that made this little machine possible. Hopefully, there's more to come!

It was an amazing little helicopter! Never thought I would have seen something like it in my lifetime! Well done NASA and Ingenuity!

Great in-depth information as usual. When you showed the landing leg had skid marks it made me think of the rotor head vibrating and might the skid marks have been caused by the whole thing vibrating while spinning down the rotors? Seen similar behaviour with RC helicopters with damaged rotor blades.

I met Loay Elbasyouni, the lead electronical designer of Ingenuity last week. He explained how it's possible that we see more projects with automotive and smartphone electronics since Ingenuity not only proved flight but also showed how to mitigate radiation and temperature limitations on exploration vehicles. Future will show much better spacecraft for sure. Maybe Scott can deep dive on Ingenuity electronics and radiation mitigation with him, we are curious how.

What a little trooper! Ingenuity has worked so hard it deserves a rest.

flight 72 of 5 really puts things into perspective!

Fun fact- Only Connect is a UK quiz where oppposing teams choose questions to answer. In the first few series these were identified by Greek letters. A few years ago, in the opening epdisode of a new series, Victorian Coren Mitchell, the host, said that they had had complaints that using greek letters was too elitist. She said, and I paraphrase here, 'So we've listened and changed'. They now use Egyptian hieroglyphs.

REALLY Excited for the next set (I assume they will send 2 next time) or helicopters they send with all the extra data they were able to get from this one!

As a camera engineer I’m confident the shading of the rotor blades is not caused by the PLS (Parasitic Light Signal) of the shutter. This would mean you will see a gradient over the image as the global shutter stops exposure over the entire frame at once but reads it row for row. Probably it’s just different light diffusion due to the hight or maybe transparency of the rotor blades in IR? As I assume the monochrome camera had no IR block filter. It could very well be a combination as PLS can depend on wavelength, especially BSI sensors.

Always some great angles and context observations from Scott Manley 👍

I never knew that about the electronic shutter. Thanks for the very clear explanation of the translucent rotor effect.

Great report, Scott. You do tell a great story with energy and pathos.

Thanks for this huge chunk of information. Not only the recent incident is covered the "scott manley way" but we all got a summary of the flight logs. Awesome !

You got that right! We are invested in The Little Helicopter That Could. That was the first sound I ever heard from Mars; I don't know if you remember the video, but that sound, recorded from another planet and transmitted home, brought me to tears, and it's all because of Ingenuity.

everybody crashes their first few drones

Great update/memoriam.Thank you Scott!

Thanks for the update Scott!

I don't know how long they expected Ingenuity to survive or how many flights but it certainly proved that flight is possible even with atmospheres as tenuous as Mars and I think that was the main program goal.

Alas poor Little Chopper has flown its last, flight 71 of 5. A long way beyond its design life, and superb service 🙂

Thanks so much for creating and sharing this informative and timely video. Great job. Keep it up.

Listening to your video triggered a memory.. "Well, we're still flying." "That's not much." "It's enough." Thank you for the details on Ingenuity. Fly safe! o7

Was the prop damage from a bird strike? ;)

Next helicoper will come with those "beginner mode" foam guards around the blades ;-)

Your videos keep me going. Thank you Scott

Fantastic and historical! Thanks again for the explanation, and out of this world stories!

So sad now that Perseverance now has to continue on its journey across mars alone.

about possible things from this point you were discussing at around 5:00 we definitely want to be cautious about what is decided, but as long as we have contact with the ingenuity we might as well try something, even if what is tried gives no results and ends with no contact. otherwise your just giving up when you might be able to get more, never know unless you try

A very comprehensive post on a fascinating topic. Thank you

Great video. Love your content Scott.

Ingenuity did the Wright bros proud , from Kitty Hawk to Mars!

Definitely exceeded all mission objectives. I'd be willing to bet that any future propeller driven "rover" will have some form of prop guards to prevent damage to the props during ground contact.

Excellent summary of the activities of the Ingenuity test article! Thanks

Thanks for the narration of the history of the little chopper the could! Good job Scott.

If it was on Earth, in a walking distance, we'd just change the props... But there? 😕 It's a saying we have in the FPV hobby... "Bad props make jello in your footage"... But who knows. Perhaps some day day the company's vehicle could do that for future missions. But I don't think it would be easy to engineer... Thanks, Scott! Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

What interests me most is whether there are any updates on how Ingenuity's chipset performed in Martian conditions. If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time they've used an off-the-shelf Snapdragon smartphone chip. As these are very powerful and operate with great efficiency, it will be important to study these types of chips for future missions to enable more and hopefully cheaper missions.

71 of 5 is success +. Thank you Scott. I got to know you because of Kerbel and I stayed for the Space updates. :) Your Fan from Tennessee.

Thanks Scott! Great details!

Just here to say: Scott we❤ you

6:24 2002? dang ingenuity has been flying on mars for a little longer than ive been alive😜

Well done Scott. Thank You.

Exceptional narrative. Thank you Scott.

If I'm not mistaken, Lil' Chopper was desgned by a group of STEM students from my state, Idaho! The fact that Ingenuity over achieved speaks volumes!! Thanks for this great post, Scott You are #1 in space reporting!!

Great video, Scott...👍

I rememver when perseverence first landed, and ingenuity was just a side experiment that might last a month. And then a few months later, suddenly it was just normal that there was a drone copter puttering around on mars. Quite the achievement, thw team behind it should be very proud.

they can just use it to find out how long the electronics last in the cycles of day/night.

Damn aliens clipping the wings 😮

A+ Narration Mr M. Great video. 👍

My friend designed the "landing gear" for this little craft. Super proud of him and the whole teams achievement on this project.

This video gave me closure. Thanks ❤️

I know it’s probably a long shot, but are there any plans on sending perseverance over to ingenuity to look at the damage and what might have caused it?

The real X-plane that was never awarded the name

as an avid rotorcraft hobbyist and designer, i'm excited to see the team's next venture. it only gets better. great job!

Flight 72/5! The profound over engineering is just mind boggling. Well done and massive kudos to the team that built this little chopper. Looking forward to seeing what will come from all this.

I mean... They could just try to fly again and see what happens.

It just unlocked a new mode of travel; the wild waddle across the dunes.

Hi Scott! Land safe!

Have à wonderful New Year's !//thanks

Sadly, it's not _2 blades_ that are broken... it's *_all 4!_* Although, that could actually mean they could still be mostly balanced! _(I'm speaking out if slight experience, having had played with broken computer fans, which run at even faster speeds)_ If there's anymotor power in reserve, *_perhaps_* they could still fly by running it even faster, to offset the missing blade length. After all, this is a pathfinder mission, and if they can manage to fly with even _less_ rotor blade, that's important!

Well just like most NASA missions it far exceeded its original goal.

bittersweet but excellent episode, made my day, thanks!

I really appreciate knowing about the software fixes. Determining fixes, talking to and updating a complex system on another planet is amazing.

6:25 2002? 2022.

great video. sad to hear. amazing chopper.

Well done remembrance video Scott.

Most people do not realize the length of each propeller. It’s amazing that battery lasted as long as it did. Definitely if the props are unbalanced the drone will rip itself apart Great video!

thanks Scott! RIP Ingenuity