Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Archives - Astrobiology

There is no GPS at the Red Planet, but a new technology called Mars Global Localization lets Perseverance determine precisely where it is — without human help.

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Perseverance Mars Rover Now Autonomously Pinpoints Its Location Using Generative AI

by Keith CowingFebruary 18, 2026February 18, 2026

Imagine you’re all alone, driving along in a rocky, unforgiving desert with no roads, no map, no GPS, and no more than one phone call a day for someone to […]

Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California monitor a research drone in the Dumont Dunes area of the Mojave Desert in September as part of a test campaign to develop navigation software to guide future rotorcraft on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Away Teams & Field Reports, Exploration Gear & Tech, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs

NASA Tests Future Mars Droids In Death Valley

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2025December 2, 2025

Next-generation drone flight software is just one of 25 technologies for the Red Planet that the space agency funded for development this year.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, right, stands near the apex of a sand ripple in an image taken by Perseverance on Feb. 24, 2024, about five weeks after the rotorcraft’s final flight. Part of one of Ingenuity’s rotor blades lies on the surface about 49 feet (15 meters) west of helicopter (at left in image). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS

Exploration Gear & Tech, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs

Understanding Mars Helicopter Ingenuity’s Last Flight On Mars

by Keith CowingDecember 26, 2024December 26, 2024

This review takes a close look the final flight of the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which was the first aircraft to fly on another world.

Location of flight 59 with an inset at the upper right showing the larger context, with north pointing forward into the distance along the surface in oblique panel and up in the inset. For flight 59, Ingenuity took off from a point northwest from Perseverance at a distance of about 378 m. The long white strand in the larger, oblique view shows the flight path toward the take-off point for flight 61. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exploration Gear & Tech, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, ROVs/Submersibles/Diving, Sample Return, Status Report

Profiling Near-Surface Winds On Mars Using Attitude Data From Mars 2020 Ingenuity

by Keith CowingOctober 29, 2024October 29, 2024

We used attitude data from the Mars Ingenuity helicopter with a simple steady-state model to estimate windspeeds and directions at altitudes of 3 meters up to 24 meters, the first […]

Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemistry (SHERLOC) and Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) sulfate mineral compositions from the Quartier abrasion (SHERLOC sol 293). (a) Colorized ACI image of the analyzed region. The cyan boxes indicate the SHERLOC scan points where sulfate phases were detected at SNR ≥10. Cyan circles within each box indicate the position and size of the SHERLOC laser spot. The yellow polygon indicates the area of the PIXL scan on sol 294. (b) PIXL maps of SO3 abundance (left) and MgO, CaO, and FeO abundances (right). (c) Heat maps of sulfate ν1 peak positions and of hydration quotients (HQ, see text for how this was calculated). The heat maps for all abrasions have the same color scale (cf. Figures 3-6). The analysis spot with a fluorescence signal is indicated by a black star in the HQ map (the solid star indicates high fluorescence >5,000 counts). (d) Representative SHERLOC Raman spectra from Ca-, and Mg-rich areas in the PIXL elemental map. Points 15 and 34 are indicated by the bold black and gray outlines, respectively, in panel (c). The regions where sulfate ν1 and hydration features can be found are indicated by gray shading. Insets show details of the main sulfate peaks of each spectrum, which have here been normalized to the same sulfate ν1 peak height for ease of comparison, and of the hydration bands, which are not normalized. The vertical dashed lines indicate the fitted center for the ν1 peak of each spectrum. Other important peak centers are indicated. -- University of Cincinnati

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Evidence Of Hydrothermal Systems Discovered On Mars Using Perseverance

by Keith CowingFebruary 23, 2024February 23, 2024

In the three years since NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars, the NASA science team has made the daily task of investigating the red planet seem almost mundane.

This modified quadcopter drone can detect and analyze hydrogen sulfide gas while in the air. -- Adapted from Analytical Chemistry, 2023, DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.3c02719 -- ACS

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Possible Off World AwayTeam Applications: Lab-on-a-drone That Tracks Air Pollution On Earth

by Keith CowingDecember 10, 2023December 10, 2023

Editor’s note: NASA is currently flying the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars as part of the Mars Perseverance rover mission. As of this posting it has flown 67 times and continues […]

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured this view of the location where it will be parked for several weeks during Mars solar conjunction, a period when engineers stop sending commands to spacecraft at the Red Planet. During this time, Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun, which expels hot, ionized gas that can interfere with radio signals sent between the planets. This image was taken by the rover’s left navigation camera on November 1, 2023, the 960th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech (PH)

Astrogeology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Press Release

Mars Missions Will Continue Astrobiology And Astrogeology Research During Solar Conjunction

by Keith CowingNovember 13, 2023November 13, 2023

Rovers and orbiters will continue collecting limited data during a two-week communications pause due to the position of Earth, the Sun, and the Red Planet.