Imagine how much more difficult it would be to diagnose a helicopter accident that took place 69 million miles away with none of the usual data present to help. NASA had to do just that after its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter suffered an accident on Jan.

"When running an accident investigation from 100 million miles away, you don't have any black boxes!" NASA's Håvard Grip said.

Even in death, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter is helping us learn about Mars. The small aircraft met the demise of its main mission on 18 January 2024, after nearly three epic years of flitting around in the thin Martian atmosphere, like the piece of engineering marvel that it is.