Hey, so this could be a really cool story to tell, not just about the helicopter disappearing, but everything leading up to it. Like, people need to understand how wild it is that this little drone was even there in the first place. It was just a tech test. They wanted to see if anything could fly on Mars at all, since the atmosphere is super thin. The original plan was: 5 flights in 30 days. But then it kept going. It ended up surviving over 1000 days, flying 72 times, through Martian winters, dust storms, random software issues. NASA kept updating it remotely. It basically turned into a scout, helping the rover find safe paths. It went from “cute side experiment” to full-on MVP.
Then it's just gone. NASA eventually shares a photo and you can kind of see something weird with one of the rotor shadows. Looks broken? Maybe. But no one knows for sure. They can’t get the rover close enough to check. Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
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00:02Having a tiny helicopter on Mars that can buzz around and scan the environment from above.
00:08Taking pictures and looking for hidden extraterrestrial life on its own.
00:13At some point, somebody at NASA said something like this behind closed doors.
00:18Then, they went and actually did it.
00:21Say hello to Ginny, one of the most significant scientific achievements since we first started exploring space.
00:30Back in 2020, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, packed a tiny side project onto the Mars mission.
00:38It was called Ingenuity, a flying experiment meant to test if powered flight was even possible on another planet.
00:46Just proof of concept, a test demo.
00:49The real mission was to explore the surface of Mars with the rover called Perseverance.
00:53In 2021, this six-wheeled robotic scientist about the size of a small SUV landed on Mars in a place called Jezero Crater.
01:04Scientists believe there was once a lake here about 3.5 billion years ago.
01:10That's important because where there's ancient water, there might have been ancient extraterrestrial life.
01:16Perseverance is basically a science lab on wheels.
01:21It can study rocks, drill into the surface, and stash samples in little sealed tubes for later.
01:27These samples are part of a long-term plan.
01:30NASA and ESA plan to bring them back to Earth in 2033 for more study.
01:36This could finally answer, has life ever existed outside Earth?
01:41Maybe samples won't give the definitive answer, but it's our best shot.
01:46Ugh, suddenly 2033 seems very far away.
01:51The rover has other instruments and testing tools that could greatly benefit future exploration of Mars.
01:56But the hero of this story is Ginny.
01:59They got the idea for this little chopper from drones here on Earth and thought it could fly around and scout for Perseverance.
02:06However, actually making it work on Mars sounds almost impossible.
02:12The first problem was the atmosphere.
02:15Mars has approximately only 1% of Earth's air pressure, which means there's barely anything to push against.
02:22On Earth, chopper blades bite into thick air to generate lift.
02:26Since there's basically no air on Mars, it's sort of like trying to swim in fog instead of water.
02:33Then there's gravity.
02:34Sure, it's only about 38% of Earth's, which helps a bit, but not nearly enough to offset the lack of air.
02:41To fly at all, the device would have to be feather light, with huge blades spinning like crazy, just to grab on to the thin air.
02:50Oh, and there's also the cold.
02:52At night, temperatures plunge to negative 130 degrees Fahrenheit,
02:57which is approximately the same as the coldest night ever recorded in Antarctica.
03:01That's enough to damage most electronics, and batteries hate the cold.
03:07So Ginny charged up during the day with a tiny solar panel,
03:10then used that power to keep warm through the freezing Martian night.
03:14Every day, scientists had to hope that their drone worth $80 million wouldn't land under a hill in a shadow,
03:22especially since it couldn't be controlled manually.
03:26Mars is so far away that signals can take up to 20 minutes to get there.
03:32Imagine playing a video game where your character has that kind of delay after you press a button.
03:38Ginny had to be fully autonomous.
03:39All these technological technicalities, and yet Ginny did not simply fly.
03:46What was first planned as a 30-day test trial with five flights ended up being a full-fledged support mission that lasted three years.
03:55So, how did engineers pull it off?
03:58First, they had to make Ginny as light as physically possible.
04:02Only four pounds.
04:03That's lighter than my house cat, but somehow, it still carried two cameras, a battery, a flight computer, a radio antenna, and even a heater.
04:14Everything had to be trimmed down, or miniaturized.
04:18Then came the blades.
04:20Ginny's most important feature.
04:22On Earth, a small helicopter spins its blades between 400 and 500 RPM.
04:27But we explained why that wouldn't work on Mars.
04:30So, Ginny's two rotor blades had to spin five times faster, about 2,500 revolutions per minute.
04:38Each blade was about two feet long, made from carbon fiber.
04:43Light as a feather, but tough as nails.
04:46And instead of sitting side by side like on a drone, those blades were stacked on top of each other, spinning in opposite directions.
04:53That cancels out the twisting force you'd normally get from a single spinning blade.
04:57You know how helicopters have that tiny tail rotor in the back?
05:03They need that because when their main rotor on top spins to lift the chopper up, it also creates a twisting force, called torque.
05:11That makes the entire vehicle want to spin in the opposite direction.
05:15Without some way to fight that, you'd end up doing donuts in the sky.
05:19However, Ginny couldn't have a tail rotor because it would add too much weight, take more power, and make things even more complicated.
05:28So, engineers created a workaround with two large blades stacked on top of each other, spinning in opposite directions, which prevented the drone from spinning out of control.
05:38As for controlling it, Ginny didn't have a full-blown AI, but it wasn't remote-controlled either.
05:46NASA uploaded flight plans from Earth, but once the drone took off, it flew itself using onboard sensors and code.
05:54Basically, like a really smart autopilot.
05:57To stay on course, it watched the ground with a downward-facing camera, kind of like tracking its own shadow as a guide.
06:05And finally, the result was seen in April 2021, when Ginny lifted off the Martian ground and hovered in place for just 39 seconds.
06:15It rose about 10 feet into the air, hovered a bit, spun around a little, and landed safely back on the red dirt.
06:23It was short and simple.
06:25One small step for a drone, but a huge one for humanity.
06:29For the next three years, the team responsible was testing the limits, flying Ginny further and further.
06:36From above, Ginny saw more than the rover could.
06:39The drone helped map the terrain, spotted risks like loose sand and sharp rocks, and even found shortcuts for Perseverance.
06:48It even saved the rover, so to speak, when its photos helped the team reroute the vehicle around a tricky dune.
06:55Ginny also made snapshots of interesting layered rocks, exactly the kind you'd need when you're searching for ancient life.
07:02Basically, once the drone spotted something weird or promising from above, Perseverance would roll over to check it out.
07:11And it worked way better than anyone expected.
07:15However, in January 2024, Ginny went missing.
07:19The drone was supposed to do a short hop, go up, hover, land, easy stuff.
07:24But after takeoff, NASA lost contact.
07:28For a while, no one knew what had happened, just silence.
07:31A few days later, NASA finally got a weak signal and pulled the flight data.
07:38Turns out, Ginny flew over a featureless terrain.
07:41See, it used its downward-facing camera to track movement, kind of like an optical mouse.
07:47No texture below meant nothing to lock onto.
07:51Mid-flight, the drone got disoriented, tilted, and during landing, one of its blades clipped the ground.
07:58NASA confirmed it.
07:59The rotor was damaged.
08:00It will never fly again.
08:03However, this is not a sad story.
08:08Even with broken wings, the robot is still useful.
08:12After Flight 72, NASA gave Ginny new software and a new job,
08:18staying powered on and quietly collecting daily data, possibly for the next 20 years.
08:24In a way, Ginny has gone from scout to ground-based observer.
08:28The biggest one on the horizon is Dragonfly, a car-sized rotorcraft scheduled to launch in 2028 and land on Titan, one of Saturn's moons.
08:45Titan has a thick atmosphere and low gravity, a dream environment for a flying drone.
08:51Dragonfly will hop from one location to another, searching for life in that icy landscape.
08:57It's like Ginny's big cousin, but with nuclear power and a whole moon to explore.
09:04The project Ingenuity's success is already inspiring NASA to design better Martian helicopters.
09:10Some of them could be equipped with grippers to pick up rock samples, or even join up with rovers for full-on search-and-collect operations.
09:19Thanks to Ginny, what started as a tech demo could one day evolve into a fleet of flying robots, criss-crossing the red planet.
09:30That's it for today. So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:37Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
