--- title: "NASA Rover Spots Dead Mars Helicopter in Its “Final Resting Place”" description: "NASA's tiny Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, has seen its last days — but its friend, the Perseverance rover, hasn't said goodbye just yet. " date: "2024-02-08" modified: "2024-02-08" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-rover-dead-ingenuity" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Mars" - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "ingenuity" - "mars" - "NASA" - "the digest" --- # NASA Rover Spots Dead Mars Helicopter in Its “Final Resting Place” ![NASA's tiny Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, has seen its last days — but its friend, the Perseverance rover, hasn't said goodbye just yet. ]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Rest Easy NASA's Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, has seen its last days of flight — but its friend, the Perseverance rover, hasn't said goodbye just yet. Originally [published earlier this month by NASA](), the grainy raw images of Ingenuity sitting sadly in the sand ripples of Mars' [Neretva Vallis river valley](), cleaned up images of the little chopper that could were posted by German design student Simeon Schmauss on on [X-formerly-Twitter]() and [Flickr](). The enhanced displays, [as Schmauss explained](), were created when he pasted together six of the raw images, zoomed in on Ingenuity, and altered the image's colors "to approximately match what the human eye would see." https://twitter.com/stim3on/status/1754509964264067519 ## Dearly Beloved Last month, [NASA announced]() that the four-pound flyer, which was the first craft ever to fly on another world, had suffered ultimately fatal damage to its rotor blades as it flew its 72nd and final journey on the Red Planet. As the designer [posited in his thread](), it could be that Ingenuity took a tumble from the steep slope where it landed and [majorly damaged its blades]() in the process. During a livestreamed tribute out from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab last month, [as reported by *Space.com*](), Ingenuity team lead Teddy Tzanetos said the Earth-bound scientists announced that they were planning a death rattle of sorts, to see if they could make its dying wings "wiggle" a bit. There's no word about whether or not that was successful. As [NASA explained](), Ingenuity was initially only supposed to make five flights to prove that it was possible to do so on another planet. The longer Ingenuity pushed on as a scout for Perseverance, the fonder folks at NASA — and [at *Futurism*]() — grew of the helicopter, making its demise all the sadder. "We couldn't be prouder or happier with how our little baby has done," Tzanetos said during the January 31 livestream. "It's been the mission of a lifetime for all of us." **More on Mars:** [*NASA Investigating Whether It Could Hire SpaceX for Mars Trip*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()