NASA is calling on industry players to come up with an alternative plan to return rocky samples from Mars at a lower cost and an earlier date.
After nearly three years of flying across the Martian terrain, the Ingenuity helicopter has finally ended its mission. NASA declared Thursday that Ingenuity had sustained damage to a blade during its most recent landing and would not make another flight.
For the next two weeks, NASA will not be sending commands to its fleet of Martian rovers, orbiters, and spacecraft until the Sun moves out of the way.
NASA is considering alternative ways to bring back samples from Mars after its budget and schedule for the sample return mission was deemed unrealistic in a recent report by an independent review board.
The findings from an independent review board suggest that NASA’s quest to return samples from Mars is riddled with challenges and seemingly impossible to accomplish under the current cost and schedule expectations.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has had a rough few months, first losing communication with its home planet and later suffering a glitch that interrupted its flight. But you can’t keep a good chopper down. Ingenuity soared above the Martian terrain once again as its team on Earth tries to figure out what went wrong with…