Ingenuity, turning it into a long-term Mars observatory

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter on Mars has been converted into a stationary test platform, collecting data that could benefit future explorers of the Red Planet. The first powered aircraft to fly on another world with 72 flights over Jezero Crater on Mars, Ingenuity's mission ended in January after the helicopter suffered an emergency landing on its final flight, severely damaging its rotor blades. NASA reported that mission controllers completed their mission by applying a software patch to the helicopter to adapt its capabilities to a new surface mission. Ingenuity will now wake up daily, activate the flight computers, and test the performance of the solar panels, batteries and electronic equipment. In addition, the helicopter will take an image of the surface using its color camera and collect temperature data from sensors located throughout the helicopter. Ingenuity engineers and Mars scientists believe that this long-term data collection could not only benefit future designers of aircraft and other Red Planet vehicles, but also provide long-term insight into weather patterns and dust movement from Mars.