Nasa’s Ingenuity helicopter survives wild flight after a navigation error. Here’s what happened

Nasa’s Ingenuity helicopter managed to land safely on the Martian surface after a navigation timing error sent it on a wild sixth flight. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on Thursday said that approximately 54 seconds into the flight, a glitch occurred in the pipeline of the images that were being delivered by the navigational camera mounted on the experimental helicopter, resulting in unexpected motion. But the helicopter stopped oscillating in the final moments of the flight, levelled its attitude and touched down at the speed of design.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration shared a sequence of images, taken by the navigation camera aboard the Ingenuity Mars helicopter, that depicted the last 29 seconds of the rotorcraft’s sixth flight.