Foreign Object Debris Seen During Helicopter's 33rd Flight

Mars Helicopter

STATUS UPDATES | September 30, 2022

Foreign Object Debris Seen During Helicopter's 33rd Flight
Written by NASA/JPL

A small piece of foreign object debris (FOD) is seen in footage from the navigation camera of NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 33rd flight on Mars on Sept 24, 2022. The FOD is seen attached to one of the rotorcraft's landing legs, then drifting away.

Navigation Camera Imagery of Ingenuity's Flight 33: A small piece of foreign object debris (FOD) is seen in footage from the navigation camera of NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 33rd flight on Mars on Sept 24, 2022. The FOD is seen attached to one of the rotorcraft's landing legs, then drifting away. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›

A small piece of foreign object debris (FOD) was seen in footage from the Mars helicopter’s navigation camera (Navcam) for a portion of its 33^rd flight. This FOD was not visible in Navcam footage from the previous flight (32). The FOD is seen in Flight 33 Navcam imagery from the earliest frames to approximately halfway through the video, when it fell from the leg and drifted back to the Mars surface. All telemetry from the flight and a post-flight search and transfer are nominal and show no indication of vehicle damage. The Ingenuity and Perseverance Mars 2020 teams are working to discern the source of the debris.

About This Blog

These blog updates were provided by the Mars Helicopter team. The Mars Helicopter was a technology demonstration to test the first powered flight on Mars.

Dates of planned test activities sometimes changed due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays, helicopter and/or rover status.

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