Foreign Object Debris on Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Leaves NASA JPL Team Baffled

NASA's Ingenuity Mars chopper took to the skies once more and hovered there for over a minute this past weekend on its 33rd interplanetary sortie. But strange debris found its way to the spacecraft's foot.

The navigation camera (Navcam) on the Mars chopper discovered the tiny bit of "foreign object debris," and teams are now trying to determine exactly what it was.

The entire video of the debris descending is available on the NASA Ingenuity website.

NASA Ingenuity's 33rd Flight

Space.com said Ingenuity, a component of NASA's life-seeking Perseverance rover project, successfully completed a trip over Mars that lasted a little over 55 seconds on Saturday (Sept. 24).

According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which oversees the missions of both Ingenuity and Perseverance, the 4-pound (1.8-kg) rotorcraft traveled around 365 feet (111 meters) before landing in a new place.

In less than a minute, flight 33's chopper traveled over 111 meters as it headed toward the Jezero river delta to meet up with the Perseverance rover.

"If you look closely at this image, you'll see Ingenuity's leg and tiny shadow," JPL officials said via Twitter on Tuesday.

@twitter|https://twitter.com/NASAJPL/status/1574899348197949440@

ALSO READ: NASA Gives Ingenuity a Break During Mars Winter and Dust Season

Unexpected Debris Landed on Spacecraft

Digital Trends said there was an unexpected guest on board for a portion of this journey when an unknown piece of debris got trapped around the helicopter's leg.

Since the foreign object debris (FOD) doesn't appear to be from the helicopter, its composition and potential origins are now unknown.

The navigation camera, or Navcam, aboard the chopper, captured the image below.

The top two of the four legs that the helicopter rests on while it is on the ground can just be seen in the upper corner of the photograph.

A little bit of debris that resembles plastic is attached to the right leg. At the same time, NASA claims it is unsure of the material's composition or source.

Foreign Object Debris Seen During Helicopter's 33rd Flight

(Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
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

Kind of Debris Still Unexplained

NASA confirmed that this piece of debris had not been there on Flight 32 of the helicopter, indicating that it had just recently been added. Fortunately, during the flight, the debris separated from the helicopter's leg and drifted away back to the surface.

"All telemetry from the flight and a post-flight search and transfer are nominal and show no indication of vehicle damage," NASA wrote.

"The Ingenuity and Perseverance Mars 2020 teams are working to discern the source of the debris," added the space agency.

Perseverance is using ingenuity to investigate Jezero Crater, which formerly held a lake and a river delta. NASA and the European Space Agency are collaborating to conduct a sample-return mission to the area later in the 2020s.

This mission will employ helicopters similar to Ingenuity to collect samples collected by Perseverance and transport them to a rocket for a launch back to Earth.

The crew has cast the sample-return mission and Perseverance's collection of samples as essential to learning more about Mars' past and the possibility of life there.