What Happened To The Mars Helicopter?

2025-03-20

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How a helicopter built of phone parts survived Mars for 3 years. Use code veritasium at https://incogni.com/veritasium to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan.

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CLARIFICATIONS:

- At 0:12, we say that ingenuity is 680g which is its weight on Mars. On Earth however, it weighs around 1800g.

-A Patreon supporter named Zeus pointed out that we were wrong about Perseverance's/Ingenuity's position on Mars. It is in the Northern Hemisphere and hence Mars would be getting closer to the Sun as it goes into winter.

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A massive thank you to the team at JPL and especially Teddy Tzanetos, Travis Brown, Håvard Grip and DC Agle

Check out Astrum's video on Mars - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7mjp7MDx_w

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0:00 How Did Ingenuity Get To Mars?

3:23 Better Results, Bigger Expectations

6:15 Wobblecopter

7:48 Dust On Mars

9:41 What Is The Temperature On Mars?

11:54 Wake-Up Call

13:41 Android To The Rescue

16:22 Cosmic Rays

20:53 Dune and The Crash

25:26 The Next Generation

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References:

Ingenuity Mars Helicopter - NASA Science via science.nasa.gov - https://ve42.co/marsheli2

Ingenuity (helicopter) via Wikipedia - https://ve42.co/wikiheli

Mars Facts | NASA Mars Exploration via science.nasa.gov - https://ve42.co/marsfacts

Inside the Ingenuity Helicopter Teamwork on Mars via insideunmannedsystems.com - https://ve42.co/marscrew

Ingenuity Adapts for Mars Winter Operations via science.nasa.gov - https://ve42.co/marswinter

Ingenuity Is Doing Surprisingly Well via www.universetoday.com - https://ve42.co/marswell

Remember NASA's Little Mars Copter? It's Still Going Strong via www.sciencealert.com - https://ve42.co/marsstrong

How Far Away Is Mars? via www.space.com - https://ve42.co/marsdist

Mars Cameras via science.nasa.gov - https://ve42.co/marsorb

Mars Exploration Meeting Documentation via www.hou.usra.edu - https://ve42.co/marsmeet

Ingenuity Quick Facts via www.jpl.nasa.gov - https://ve42.co/marsquick

Flight 14 Delayed via science.nasa.gov - https://ve42.co/marsspin

Ingenuity Almost Crashed Due to Camera Glitch via petapixel.com - https://ve42.co/marsglitch

Additional References - https://ve42.co/MarsAdRefs

Images & Video:

Images and video from Perseverance and Ingenuity missions supplied by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Matthias (3 axis accelerometer, 3 axis gyroscope) https://youtu.be/yqFfmwVufMo?si=IoCj32PeVNZ4VJ-F

Veritasium. /youtube/video/ty9QSiVC2g0

The Limiting Factor

https://youtu.be/4-1psMHSpKs?si=LF1jfLLNsBwRfwkB

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. https://youtu.be/xsUtq8PwZpQ?si=xOC91fdoSHdJndgx

VideoFromSpace. https://youtu.be/Kb0Pc22N6w4?si=4uSUetsSUKFTStme

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. https://youtu.be/qMbHE_VXI-8?si=TNePbTRpcN3oLEVJ

Veritasium. /youtube/video/GhsZUZmJvaM

Sighawke. https://youtu.be/OdKAW_0ENPU?si=18ZXXll3wSMj_Ex3

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. https://youtu.be/thk4Rha-fTk?si=_elC6Iqm1uaSjEFX

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. https://youtu.be/PFbzEM8PzHE?si=LmO71EVFqBAn6NEw

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. https://youtu.be/ia6S1jZmwWc?si=aAFC-BEmGwHIIqH7

JPL Raw. https://youtu.be/uz4GaAE7OMQ?si=7084_GDkrGnSSVTy

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. https://youtu.be/U7DFnNimSfw?si=JgwO2SNU9HXf3GIa

Apex Clips. https://youtu.be/NttUBB98zg4?si=j1OEQD1VBONTEEPI

Veritasium. /youtube/video/AaZ_RSt0KP8

Cyber Chaos Crew. https://youtu.be/-KFH--_cdiI?si=S5rv8RjTtscu-S22

NBC News. https://youtu.be/lFiTjZDOekg?si=6a43qnPdveHaz6YA

Further image and video credits - https://docs.google.com/document/d/19fkGlnMj86GoISqBuEJbmW5oIpDI-JwDmlM7-iFITzU/edit?usp=sharing

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Autodidactic Studios, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Greg Scopel, HydrochloRick, Juan Benet, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Sam Lutfi, TTST, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee

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Directed by Henry van Dyck

Written by Henry van Dyck

Edited by Trenton Oliver

On-site Interviews by Jonny Hyman

Filming by Alex Gorosh

Produced by Rob Beasley Spence, Tori Brittain, Jonny Hyman, Henry van Dyck, Gabe Strong, Zoe Heron, and Derek Muller

Animated by Emma Wright and Mike Radjabov

Additional Research by Gabe Strong and Darius Garewal

Additional Editing by James Stuart

Thumbnail contributions by Ben Powell, Ren Hurley, Peter Sheppard, Gregor Čavlović and Henry van Dyck

Additional video/photos supplied by NASA JPL, Getty Images and Storyblocks

Music from Epidemic Sound