Nasa’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which made history by achieving the first powered flight on another world, has suffered mission-ending damage.
In a statement, Nasa said the aircraft was forced to perform an “emergency landing” that damaged its rotors.
The space agency’s Bill Nelson said the aircraft was “the little helicopter that could” and had racked up far more missions than had been intended.
He said Ingenuity had “paved the way for future flight in our solar system”.
Ingenuity is said to remain “upright” but images taken by an accompanying ground vehicle showed that “one or more of its rotor blades” were damaged and it was “no longer capable of flight”.
Nasa said the circumstances were being investigated.