March: Ingenuity embarked in flight an object of still unknown origin

The small drone-helicopter Ingenuity tirelessly continues to explore the surface of March and thus pave the way for the rover Perseverance. During Ingenuity’s 33rd and last flight, an unusual event disturbed the almost daily routine of our two Martian explorers. NASA engineers have indeed realized by viewing the video recording of the Ingenuity NavCam that an object of unknown origin had embarked with the small flying machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD1bpaAqwpo

This undefined object appears on the image as a simple, slightly transparent white spot (in the upper right corner of the video recording) and everything suggests at first sight that it is a plastic material, without doubt a debris from a previous mission to Mars or even from the Perseverance mission itself. This debris could have been ejected during the landing phase on the red planet. The good news is that “all telemetry data collected during the flight and after landing are normal and show no signs of damage to the vehicle” according to NASA.

This is not the first time that Ingenuity has encountered debris on the surface of Mars, and given the incredible endurance of the small drone-helicopter, it will undoubtedly not be the last.