"When running an accident investigation from 100 million miles away, you don't have any black boxes!" NASA's Håvard Grip said.

Relying on remote data, including photographs taken after the flight, the investigators believe that “navigation errors created high horizontal velocities at touchdown,” which most likely resulted in Ingenuity experiencing a “hard impact on the sand ripple’s slope,” causing it to pitch and roll.

Imagine how much more difficult it would be to diagnose a helicopter accident that took place 69 million miles away with none of the usual data present to help. NASA had to do just that after its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter suffered an accident on Jan.

Even in death, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter is helping us learn about Mars. The small aircraft met the demise of its main mission on 18 January 2024, after nearly three epic years of flitting around in the thin Martian atmosphere, like the piece of engineering marvel that it is.

Ingenuity was designed to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days but managed to operate for almost three years, performing 72 flights.

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In January, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity suddenly crashed after more than 70 flights. NASA now believes it has identified the cause of the accident.

After over 70 flights, the Ingenuity helicopter — the first craft to ever make a powered, controlled flight on another planet — crashed in the Martian dunes in January 2024. But its unexpected achievement (engineers hoped it might make five flights) has prompted the conceptual design and planning for what the agency calls its "Mars Chopper."