perseverance

NASA has declared the end of its Ingenuity Mars helicopter mission. Originally scheduled to last a month with five flights, it lasted for three years with 72 flights before being grounded by damaged rotors after its last flight.

In anticipation of one of history's most ambitious planetary missions, NASA has successfully tested the two solid rocket motors that will be used to help return the first geological samples from Mars to Earth for laboratory analysis.

As far as landscapes go, Mars is pretty dull – it’s mostly just rocks and craters. But now the Perseverance rover has spotted a couple of particularly weird rocks that have been hollowed out in eerie shapes.

After over two months of silence, NASA has been able to reestablish contact with its wayward Ingenuity robotic helicopter on Mars after radio transmissions were blocked by a hill. This marks what is now the official end of flight 52.

The first aircraft to fly on another planet has hit a new milestone. NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has recently clocked up its 50th flight, and achieved a new altitude record in the process.

It may look like a lightsaber sitting on the surface of Mars, but this titanium tube is a sample canister dropped off by Perseverance. This could eventually be the first pristine sample of Martian soil and rock returned to Earth in a future mission.

Dust devils are a common occurrence on Mars, but Perseverance has now captured one from up close for the first time. The NASA rover recorded video from right inside the dust devil, as well as the first audio of the phenomenon on the Red Planet.

Ever since taking off on its historic first flight last year, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has been single-handedly raising the bar for the Red Planet’s aviation scene, and has now soared to its greatest heights yet.

Humans might not be the first lifeforms to face self-induced climate change. A new model suggests Mars was once habitable enough to support microbes, and they may have wiped themselves out by causing irreparable damage to the Red Planet’s atmosphere.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured some incredible imagery since landing on the Red Planet early last year, but none as detailed as its latest effort, a stunning mosaic made up of more than 1,000 separate images.

If humans are to one day survive and thrive on Mars, ready access to breathable oxygen will be a necessity, and an interesting technology sent along with the Perseverance rover is beginning to show exciting promise on this front.

On April 19, the one-year anniversary of its first flight, NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter visited and took images of the crash site of the protective aeroshell and parachute that helped deliver it and the Perseverance rover to the Red Planet.