NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity has Flown its Final Flight Amidst Rotor Damage

When I was a young helicopter pilot in the Marines I was doing “confined area landings” into a tiny landing zone at Camp Lejeune, NC.  I was the aircraft commander of our CH-46 “Sea Knight”.

This would have been in the late 70’s before, mind you, we started filleting and skewering people for their mistakes.  Well, at least that’s my opinion for what it’s worth.  I know…not much.  But my career in the Marines survived this mistake.  I’m pretty sure my career would not survive a similar mistake today.

I flew to home base (MCAS New River) from that confined area landing training aboard Camp Lejeune with a noticeable higher than normal vibration and “shuffle” (helicopters naturally vibrate and shuffle even when nearly perfectly tuned and timed) and a more pronounced “wop-wop” sound emanating from the helicopter’s rotor blades. 

After landing and doing the post flight inspection, we found that four of the six rotor blades on my machine (all three on the aft rotor head and one on the forward rotor head) had their blade tip “caps” missing.  Tip caps were aluminum casings at the end of the rotor blades that covered the blade weights and adjustment mechanisms used to “tune” each of the rotor blades for smooth flight. 

I had obviously hit some tree branches with my rotor blades while hovering and settling into the confined area.  The tips of my CH-46 helicopter rotor blades were “flying” (spinning through the air) at nearly the speed of sound and it didn’t take much of a “whack” (at least as the blades were designed and built back then) to knock off their tip caps.

Our squadron’s maintenance department replaced the four blades on my aircraft, adjusted the weights to tune the new blades, ordered four tip caps to replace those knocked off of the original rotor blades, and put those four repaired rotor blades back into the supply system.  Done, done, and done.  

Though I had made a mistake in damaging the rotor blades, the Ops O or CO didn’t even say, “Boo!” to me over that event.  There was no accident investigation or Field Flight Performance Board.  That aircraft was back in an “up” status and in-service flying the next day.

Oh.  We debriefed the event, as I recollect, noting that the next time we did confined area landings, we needed to be more careful…we needed to execute more rapidly the crew chief and first mechanic instructions (the guys in the back providing directions on adjusting our decent into the confined area) to avoid hitting trees and knocking off tip caps in the future.

We learned something and my mistake was all fixed, lickity-split.  What a blessing!  We were on Terra Firma, we had the parts, we had the manpower, we had the tools and the know-how, and the CH-46 was designed and built to be relatively easy to repair.   

Not so with a helicopter flying on Mars, 45 years later, as described by author Mike Wall on 1/25/24 in Space.com.

“The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end.  NASA’s pioneering helicopter Ingenuity has made its final Mars flight.

“Ingenuity — the first-ever robot to ply the skies of an alien world — suffered rotor-blade damage during its most recent hop and ‘is no longer capable of flight,’ NASA announced today (Jan. 25).

“’The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to an end,’ NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an agency statement.

“’That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best — make the impossible, possible,’ Nelson added. Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond.’”

This image, which shows the shadow of a damaged rotor on NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity, was taken after its 72nd and final flight on Jan. 18, 2024 on the Red Planet. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

“Ingenuity landed alongside NASA’s Perseverance rover on the floor of Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021.

“The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper was tasked with demonstrating that powered flight is indeed possible on Mars despite the planet’s thin atmosphere — it promptly did so during a five-flight campaign that spring.

“NASA then granted Ingenuity an extended mission, which saw the rotorcraft serve as a scout for the life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance.  Ingenuity conducted a whopping 67 flights during this new campaign, far exceeding the expectations of the mission’s scientists and engineers.

“Though the little helicopter’s prime mission was targeted to last just 30 days, it remained operational on the Martian surface for nearly three years.  Staying aloft for nearly 129 minutes during its 72 Red Planet flights, Ingenuity covered about 11 miles (17.7 kilometers) of ground, according to the mission’s flight log.

“But Ingenuity encountered some problems during its final flight, which occurred on Jan. 18.  During that sortie, ‘communications between the helicopter and rover terminated early, prior to touchdown,’ NASA said in a statement.

“The mission team managed to reestablish contact with Ingenuity, but imagery the chopper collected during the Jan. 18 flight revealed that one or more of its four rotor blades ‘sustained damage during landing,’ NASA officials wrote in today’s update.

“Though Ingenuity’s flying days are over, however, the helicopter’s legacy is assured.  It has carved out a well-earned place in humanity’s exploration record books, and its success on Mars will likely lead to further aerial exploration of the Red Planet.

“Indeed, NASA plans to send two Ingenuity-like ‘copters to help Perseverance collect samples for return to Earth, and the agency is already developing larger and more capable helicopters that could someday conduct science missions of their own on the Red Planet.” (Space.com)