The Ingenuity team lead, Josh Anderson, expressed amazement at the helicopter’s longevity and performance on Mars.
Ingenuity surpassed expectations with over 1,000 Martian days on the surface, 72 flights, and one rough landing.
Originally designed for only five test flights over 30 days, Ingenuity operated for almost three years, flew 14 times farther than expected, and logged over two hours of flight time.
The helicopter’s mission came to an end after a hard landing on its final flight, damaging its rotor blades and rendering it unable to fly.
Ingenuity will remain at “Valinor Hills” while the Perseverance rover continues its exploration in Jezero Crater.
The team celebrated with chocolate cake, reviewing data from over 189 million miles away confirming that a software update is operating as expected.
The new software includes commands for Ingenuity to continue collecting data even after communications with the rover have ceased.
