In July 2022 NASA decided to use two helicopters based on the Ingenuity design on a future Sample Retrieval Lander mission in place of an ESA-provided rover to pick up Perseverance’s cached samples if necessary.
Ingenuity was included on NASA’s Mars 2020 mission with the Perseverance rover as a technology demonstration planned for no more than five flights over one month.
Lessons from flying Ingenuity are being used to improve aerodynamic modeling and thermal-environment modeling for the Mars Sample Return sample retrieval helicopters.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported that the Ingenuity Mars helicopter completed its 70th flight on 2023-12-22.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences unveiled a prototype of an Ingenuity-like helicopter for Mars sample collection in 2021.
Ingenuity has made 36 flights as of December 10, 2022, traveling 110 meters in one minute.
The new helicopter can carry a 150-gram sample tube, with other specifications similar to Ingenuity.
MSR managers requested the Ingenuity team start work on helicopter designs capable of picking up sample tubes about six months ago.
Apollo 13 was a 1970 lunar mission in which three astronauts returned their failing spacecraft to Earth using improvised solutions and ingenuity.
On 2022-07-27, NASA and the European Space Agency revised their Mars Sample Return plans to remove a fetch rover and its lander and to incorporate helicopters modeled on Ingenuity as replacements.
Ingenuity lost communications with the Perseverance rover on 2022-05-03 and contact was reestablished on 2022-05-05 after the rover entered a low-power state when its battery levels dropped below a lower limit.
Ingenuity completed its 21st flight on 2022-03-11, traveling 370 m during a 129-second flight.
The Atlas V 541 configuration has launched missions for the National Reconnaissance Office, carried the GOES-R and GOES-S satellites, and most recently launched the Mars 2020 mission with the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter.
Ingenuity made the first powered flight on another world in April and conducted its 12th flight on 2021-08-16, covering 450 m in 169.5 seconds.
China is developing a vehicle similar in appearance to NASA's Ingenuity helicopter to expand its space exploration capabilities.
Ingenuity performed its eighth flight on Mars on 2021-06-21, traveling 160 m and landing at a new site 134 m from the Perseverance rover.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter completed its fourth flight on 2021-04-30, staying aloft for 117 seconds.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter performed its third flight on Mars on 2021-04-25.
Ingenuity took off from the Martian surface at 4:31 a.m. Eastern during its third flight.
NASA’s Ingenuity team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory received data from the helicopter via NASA’s Perseverance rover at 6:46 a.m. EDT (3:46 a.m. PDT) on 2021-04-19.