NASA Smart Mars helicopter found mysterious debris and fell during flight

CTOnews.com, October 2 (Xinhua)-- NASA Mars helicopter Intelligence (Ingenuity) has had a difficult winter and has resumed its flight, recently completing its 33rd flight since landing on Mars with the perseverance rover in February 2021. The helicopter has made several flights since it returned to operation after a break from June to August, completing its 31st flight on September 6, followed by its 32nd flight on September 17 and its 33rd flight on September 24.

On the 33rd flight, the helicopter flew more than 111 meters in less than a minute and flew to the Jazelo Delta to rendezvous with the perseverance probe.

However, during this flight, an unknown fragment was sandwiched to the leg of the helicopter. The foreign body fragment (FOD) does not seem to have come from the helicopter itself, so it is currently a mystery.

CTOnews.com learned that the above image was taken by the helicopter's navigation camera, which is called Navcam. In the most corner of the image, almost every leg at the top of the helicopter can be seen, attached to the right leg is a small piece of debris, NASA said it is not sure what the debris is and where it came from.

NASA confirmed that the fragment was not visible during the helicopter's previous flight, the 32nd flight, so it appears to have appeared recently. Fortunately, during the flight, the fragment separated from the helicopter's leg and floated back to the ground.

NASA said there was no sign of helicopter damage and that the Mars 2020 teams of Smart and stamina were trying to identify the source of the debris.