NASA reports extremely bad news about ships hunting alien life

Ingenuity's journey to find alien life had to end suddenly due to a serious incident during the days of loss of contact.

Ingenuity, a robotic Mars lander shaped like a small helicopter, had a damaged rotor . This will cause it to never take off again and stay permanently in this alien world , according to a January 25 statement from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

A photo of the Martian ground accidentally revealed that Ingenuity had a broken rotor - (Photo: NASA).

Citing NASA's announcement, Space.com said Ingenuity had to make an emergency landing during its final flight. That was also the day that NASA announced the sudden loss of contact with this lander, January 18.

Previously, Ingenuity reached a height of 12m, the record height it had ever achieved in flights. During landing, when only 1 meter above the ground, communication was cut off.

Engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) soon restored contact after leaving its companion, the Perseverance lander, to search. Ingenuity is in contact with NASA indirectly through Perseverance.

However, just after receiving the good news of finding Ingenuity, engineers discovered that its carbon fiber propeller was damaged, through images that Perseverance took of its little friend.

According to Mr. Bill Nelson, they are examining the possibility that this propeller touched the ground during that final landing.

But for whatever reason, Ingenuity can no longer fly. The planet's distance also does not allow NASA engineers to repair it.

Although Ingenuity is temporarily not completely "dead" , staying on the ground could cause this helicopter robot to soon be buried in a Martian dust storm, like the fate of some other US and Russian ships.

Even so, Ingenuity completed its mission in a time that exceeded expectations.

Landing with Perseverance in February 2021, this small helicopter robot has a short mission of only 30 days. However, it has been flying for 3 years with 72 Mars exploration flights.

Ingenuity's mission is low-altitude aerial exploration to find promising places for hunting for alien life. After that, its companion Perseverance will arrive to study more closely, do experiments, and collect samples.

Perseverance is a robotic lander shaped like a rover, similar to the famous Wall-E robot in the cartoon.

This robot is equipped with cameras, a mini laboratory in its belly, sample collection tools. and is currently NASA's top alien life hunter.

In another area of ​​Mars, an older version of Perseverance, Curiosity, is still operating more than 12 years after landing (November 2011).