[Mars Helicopter] Ingenuity Won’t Fly Again Because It’s Missing a Rotor Blade 🔴

Universe Today ^ | FEBRUARY 28, 2024 | MARK THOMPSON

[Ezekiel]

Ingenuity has been the first aerial vehicle on another world. NASA announced the end of the Martian helicopter’s life at the end of its 72nd flight. During the flight there had been a problem on landing and, following the incident a few photos revealed chips in one of the rotor blades but nothing too serious. New images have been revealed that show the craft is missing one of its rotor blades entirely!

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On 11 Feb, NASA used the black and white navigation camera to record a video showing the shadow of the rotors turning. It was an ingenious idea by the engineers to try and understand the extent of the damage to the 1.2m blades. To their surprise the footage revealed that one fo the blades, the upper blade seems to be absent! It looks like the blade detected near the mast.

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[threefinger]

The rotors are made from carbonfiber skin over a foam core. Rotor tip speed at the low operating speed is a smidge over 500 fps/340 mph. They obviously weren’t designed with an impact of that magnitude in mind, but it’d be interesting to see a failure analysis.

[Mr_Moonlight]

It was done by Americans. Our imperfect but far greater country than anywhere else on Earth.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You !!!

With so much cynical negativity here on FR lately, it's nice to see a positive 'spin' once in a while :)

Thanks again !!!