NASA’s Mars helicopter was grounded in 2024 after surprise success

A little helicopter finally met its end this year. NASA’s Ingenuity drone made its 72nd and final flight on Mars in January, damaging one of its rotors on landing, concluding one of the most unusual space exploration experiments in recent decades.

Having reached the surface of Mars on the Perseverance rover in 2021, the drone flew missions autonomously because the long delay in radio transmissions between Earth and Mars made direct control impossible.…