NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Spots Foreign Object Debris on Mars

Mars Helicopter Sol 254 Navigation Camera

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image using its navigation camera. This camera is mounted in the helicopter’s fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight. This image was acquired on November 6, 2021 (Sol 254 of the Perseverance rover mission) at the local mean solar time of 12:06:00. This was the date of Ingenuity’s 15th flight. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Footage from the Mars helicopter’s navigation camera reveals a small piece of foreign object debris (FOD).

During a portion of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter’s 33rd flight, a small piece of foreign object debris (FOD) was seen in footage (see video below) from the Mars helicopter’s navigation camera (Navcam).

This foreign object debris was not visible in Navcam footage from the previous flight (32). The FOD is seen in Flight 33 Navcam imagery from the earliest frames to around halfway through the video, when it fell from the leg and drifted back to the Mars surface. All telemetry from the flight and a post-flight search and transfer are nominal and show no indication of vehicle damage. The Ingenuity and Perseverance Mars 2020 teams are currently working to determine the source of the debris.

NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Flight 33 Foreign Object Debris

Navigation Camera Imagery of Ingenuity’s Flight 33: A small piece of foreign object debris (FOD) is seen in this footage from the navigation camera of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 33rd flight on Mars on September 24, 2022. The FOD is seen attached to one of the rotorcraft’s landing legs (upper right part of image), then drifting away. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Flight 33 Preview – By the Numbers

  • Flight number – 33
  • No earlier than Sol 567, Saturday, Sept. 24
  • Heading – West
  • Max Altitude – 33 feet (10 meters)
  • Expected Distance – ~365 feet (111.238 meters)
  • Expected Airspeed – 10.6 mph (4.75 m/s)
  • Expected Time Aloft – 55.61 seconds
  • Goal of Flight: Reposition of the helicopter

104 Comments on "NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Spots Foreign Object Debris on Mars"

  1. I hope not a Vodka bottlep

  2. Probably more Human waste, not unlike what they found 7 miles down in the Mariana Trench – go 7 miles down and there’s a liquor bottle, laying at the bottom of the deepest spot on Earth where not even light can reach. We are our own worst enemy.

  3. Those plastic bags!

  4. Looks like a piece of plastic wrap. Maybe someone stopped there for lunch? lol

  5. Why does NASA continue to degrade images from all the modern high tech digital cameras on the plethora of craft it has sent to Mars and the moon for the last 20+ years??

    • Well, consider this. My device can’t display a hundred billion pixels within a 4″x6″image. Not even a full-screen super-HD display can do that. Websites know this and won’t put up such a photo. And they know your own eyes can’t even resolve that much detail on a web page even if the device could display it. The only way to view such photos in highest def is to have them zoomable. That requires a lot more data sharing that has no monetary value. Few will zoom in and even those that will zoom in won’t view any extra ads as a result. So, more expense for the website with no payback. And NASA has to pay for sharing hyper-def images. The same NASA that has limited dollars yet has to pay for the Artemis waste using budgets that countries would envy. All that money means money for you to look at pics is not there. Does that analysis seem reasonable?

      • LOL, you could just say you have no idea. It is much shorter. The fact is, the rear facing camera is a B&W VGA (640×480) camera. You would think with the millions they are saving by not posting ‘hundred billion pixel’ pictures, they could afford a better camera.

        • They actually put low-res cameras on spacecraft for the sole purpose to irritate you. 😉

          In all seriousness, it is not at all that they can or cannot afford a better camera. The cameras needs to be purpose driven and power efficient. This low-res black and white camera is primarily for navigation, it doesn’t need a super ultra hyper HD camera to do so. A better camera adds weight and needs more processing power to work efficiently to maximize battery life. The battery is only rated for one 90 second flight per Martian day, the rest of the battery capacity is used to keep the avionics warm overnight. Secondly, it does have a 13 megapixel camera on it to take pictures. I dont believe that camera takes videos.

    • This image is not from a modern high-tech digital camera. The Ingenuity has two Sony IMX 214 color cameras (4208 x 3120). That’s how you know this is NOT from one of its “modern high-tech cameras”. This is from its downward-facing black and white only NAVIGATION CAMERA, which is an Omnivision OV7251, with a maximum resolution of 640×480. Yes, that’s right, the “high-tech digital camera” that this image comes from, has the resolution of a monitor from 1990.

  6. It has toilet paper stuck to it’s foot.

  7. Are plastic bags even legal on Mars?

  8. Must be snakes on Mars…and they’re growing.

  9. Just debris from Earth. Think about that…….

  10. Oh gawd!! It’s a plastic water bottle!

  11. Couldn’t be a bathroom tissue, looks alike

  12. Bigfoot throwing rocks again.

  13. It may be some type of fungi. Wouldn’t that be cool?

  14. ….Aliens! (Input pic of Giorgio Tsoukalos)

  15. Could it be Bigfoot. Taking a nap

  16. It’s a Mynock, probably chewing on the power cables

  17. Nategoonanalover | October 2, 2022 at 1:44 pm | Reply

    Looks like plastic bags made it to mars before humans…our trash will be allover the universe in couple thousand years.

  18. Albert Einstein | October 2, 2022 at 2:16 pm | Reply

    If NASA found ANYTHING, we (you & me), would be The LAST to find out about it….!

  19. That looks a bit like a condom

  20. Dirty aliens!

  21. Yeah because we routinely load trash on a rocket and send it to mars and space @Major Payne 🤦‍♂️🤡

  22. Looks like a used condom 🙄

  23. It must be something left behind by Joe biteme. He’s originally from Mars isn’t he?

  24. Looks like a used condom. Yuk

  25. Looks just baby crater and shadows in it.if debris found may be any parted from preserverance

  26. It is a Martian condom.

  27. How does it cost them money to post pictures and video? When you can post videos in pictures with a lot better quality right on Facebook for free why don’t they open up a Facebook page and pay nothing that doesn’t make sense to me that their excuses are money issues

    • I’m eagerly awaiting for someones matter of fact reply chalked full of bs that they can’t prove as they don’t carry a NASA employee badge. You may be mocked, ridiculed, or ignored altogether, which are all symptoms of adolescent emotiana, and indicative of a person’s belief structure or cognitive dissonance being challenged. I’ve got the popcorn ready!

      *Seriously though, there’s no excuse under Earth’s lower orbit to not have quality technology and gear implemented. At $65,000,000 a day for a budget, I think the taxpayers, us-we-you-I, deserve the best. Were paying them for the best. There shouldn’t be any excuses from NASA or their loyal,and often blind fan base.
      That’s $23,725,000,000 (23 Billion,725 million dollars annually)

  28. First a fray of sting and now a piece of plastic? Looks like mars already had a jump start on littering

  29. tim thedude (@tim_thedude) | October 2, 2022 at 10:36 pm | Reply

    Wasn’t there a rumor that all the drone videos and rover videos were filmed on earth and that’s why the cameras are so bad and black and white ? Now the drone picks up a pies of plastic and we still wondering why the cameras are so bad with systems of satellites everywhere to relay info why do we still have cameras from the sixties what is it they are hiding did they never go to space in the first place ? Or did we already ruin a planet and they are hiding our origin and our repeated fate

  30. Darn plastic six pack drink ring holders. Where are the scissors?

  31. Thatoneguyfromschool | October 3, 2022 at 12:19 am | Reply

    A Martian condom

  32. What’s even a bigger trip is what if et stopped while him and his got was cruising around with the window down. Then decided to make a home video sex tape with the cameras, and after he threw his “rain coat” down and it stuck on the leg? An disgruntled employee will make millions when that et becomes famous…. Lmao

  33. And it’s finly staring to make abalutly no sense to myself that people and I meen pretty much the intyer human race are completely and so brain washed by all this garbage and lies that are feed to the intyer plant and continue to make exsuses about what it is and what we are the ingredients for nothing more then all human species are just here to continue to feed the incredible greedy money hungry and power starved selfish uncaring harmful destructive eletest that are the 4% of the intyer human population on earth who own 98% of all weelth on the planet … And don’t give a dam about anything anywhere or anybody and have nothing more on there minds then continue to have each and everone of us think that haveing a cardboard box in a sick and filthy dasise and polluted unhealthy to live in and to pay for and call your own but is it really hard not to see the injustice inhumane sickness insanity and completely out of control with 200% murder on the rise crimes increases by record numbers the lack of inforcement homeless incamements and continue feeling to afraid to be alone or to send your children to school because continue brake ins home invasions corruption cash kick bàck to judges making even the smallest mistameners like j walking get people five years … I have nothing nice to say about a organization that has lied to human civilization sents the beginning of time and you only fill the gap between the upper and lower class and you faith nearly keeps you inline and put your trust in a god that has left you being and what does that get you not a heck of a lot

  34. Piece of the crashed Phobos space craft from Russia. The one that was rammed by a spike shaped FOD at the moon in 1988. This FOD is a detached plastic translucent shroud being blown around by Martian Winds.

  35. Urrrrrooooosssss....and away! | October 3, 2022 at 1:58 am | Reply

    All I see is what looks like an larger peace of rock, not from something fearfull like a piece of some alien tech that fell of the object because the screw wasn’t holding it right. Stupid, we are not.

  36. It better not be from coke or pepsi i can see the half time adds now lol.

  37. Mars spider webs.

  38. It makes sense that the camera being used is a lower resolution, and not in color. High resolution full frame video clips, especially color, take bandwidth, and given how far this device is.. I can understand that. You can’t expect a high speed “internet connection” that far. It’s a technological limitation right now.

  39. Human crossed it’s limit of Plastic waste upto the Mars

  40. Trying for government money NAsA creditably and integrity is in toilet yes let’s back to the moon for what.

  41. ET1: Look, the earthlings left their calling card…
    ET2: As if…

  42. I suspect, and I just sent a link of this to David Childress to confirm, and yes, after ignoring all the most likely explanations, ‘this must be extraterrestrial!!’… Kinda looks like it could be the wispy end of a flying creatures tail… Just like the one possibly carved in the Mayan temple…

  43. #asurexmobile

  44. Secrets secrets secrets lies and more lies Mars was rendered life less due to a great war aka the greatflood notice the electrical sear mark that scars half the planet

  45. Piece of a parachute?

  46. Donald Trumps dignity.

  47. For Christ sake! It’s year 2022 folks! Not 1969 where folks are easily fooled by Tell-Lie-Vision 📺. Stop being brainwashed. This footage is just here in #DevonIsland a remote location in Canada. FYI planets means WANDERING STARS. They are not SOLID places anything or anyone could land on. We’re losing $52,000,000.00 PER day from our taxes for these SCAMMERS “space missions”.

    • Correction: $65,000,000 a day is their budget.

      Correcting my correction before I post comment:

      Each year federal agencies receive funding from Congress, known as budgetary resources . In FY 2022, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had $30.62 Billion distributed among its 1 sub-components. Agencies spend available budgetary resources by making financial promises called obligations .
      *Source: Google

      We’re both wrong! NASA’s 2022 Budget is $30.62 billion annually, which breaks down to an astounding :

      $83,890,410 (83 million,890 thousand) U.S. tax paying dollars a DAY for their budget! Just under $84 million a day!

      *(Annual budget divided by 365 days)*

  48. Why don’t we launch multiple drones in rockets to manuver more easily thru space maybe the rocket can be used to keep the drones powered up

  49. looks like a old condom to me, even martians are practicing safety! lmao

  50. In our defense, Earth’s that is. I believe those resource sapping Martians threw that out the window on a fly by. You know their ancestors lived on Easter Island.

  51. Looks like a spider web…

  52. That object is probably a left over when God destroyed man with water in Mars. God destroyed man in Mars because of our iniquities and relocated man to earth. Unfortunately we are back to our sins on earth and even attempting to rediscover our ancestral home in Mars. Who knows where else God will relocate those of us to be saved when God destroys the earth.

  53. Charlie Escobar sr. | October 3, 2022 at 1:34 pm | Reply

    Just a Walmart bag no big deal.

  54. Chance Henderson | October 3, 2022 at 1:53 pm | Reply

    Has the possibility of a thin, web like layer be possible? Like cobwebs, just Martian style.

  55. Gila Katz-Kfir | October 3, 2022 at 3:01 pm | Reply

    So now we are polluting Mars as we are our Earth! Humanity never learns!

  56. They have to stop dumping from space station doesn’t always come back down to earth

  57. Snake skin,rumour has it Mars is infested with alien snakes

  58. Human garbage no doubt

  59. Probably one of deez nutz!😂

  60. Just speculation, but, is it the beginning.

  61. It’s Joe Biden’s bicycle helmet,

  62. Machines Don’t wipe down there, they don’t drink water. I’m sure that object was the operating manual for the drone. 😂

  63. Open and shut case…. it’s covid

  64. I thoroughly enjoy all of the conspiracy theories about trash on Mars.

  65. Condom, even the Grey’s get itchy.

  66. Those dirty Martians…

  67. Marko Brankovic | October 4, 2022 at 12:40 am | Reply

    Maybe it is organic. Primitive way of life. Condensation on metal leg attract this creature. Navigate it back for more study.

  68. Before we jump to conclusions. Let’s all just hear what the ancient aliens guy has to say.

  69. Robert Edward Anthony Lapierre | October 4, 2022 at 12:57 am | Reply

    I think the surface in seeking intelligent life would be a big etch a sketch. Possibly from underneath or a moon beaming a particle laser to etch a word or two. Maybe a bit encoded…

  70. Robert Edward Anthony Lapierre | October 4, 2022 at 12:57 am | Reply

    Actually 3:57 est.

  71. Wish they would have taken the time to slow it down and possibly blow it up all that money NASA has and they use a $5 camera

    • $65,000,000 a day budget they’re working with. If I were a NASA fanboy I’d be expecting a heck of a lot more out of them. But I’m not and only expect more of the same they’ve been serving up for 60+ years. I just like coming to these sites to check on their degrading quality and ever thinning story lines.

  72. carlsagan lives | October 4, 2022 at 2:15 am | Reply

    Looks like a chunk from Dimorphos.

  73. Uneasily Duped | October 4, 2022 at 2:40 am | Reply

    Mars huh?? Lmfao. Let the lie go already it’s time

  74. Its from Shockwave of the Decepticon. It fell off during a battle.

  75. Mars bar wrapper?

  76. It’s from the carpenter who built this Studio scene. Man has never been to the moon , Capricorn 1, Nixon exposed it

  77. Schnicklefritz | October 4, 2022 at 6:47 am | Reply

    Whilst the whole time I thought my remote was Infact lost in my couch!

  78. Michael Thomas | October 4, 2022 at 7:08 am | Reply

    What does the S stand for in debris?
    Aliens…

  79. Further missions to Mars will include a recycling bin. No worries people

  80. Its definitely us! Foreign object?
    We Fill everything with trash… everywhere we go….not like we just got to Mars…we have been leaving trash on Mars since the first Rover landed?

  81. No doub an Unidentified Object.
    Keep those tax dollars coming.

  82. What if the evolution of humanity is an inevitable and natural process that always occurs so people can create Styrofoam and then die off.

  83. Because they’re not on Mars. Never were.

  84. Straw wrapper from Mars Culver’s fly-thru

  85. Foreign? Foreign object from earth.

  86. Yep, first plastic contaminant of a neighbouring planet. The mark of the human touch.

    • Looks like a drone, fitted with four long landing legs, taken out to a nearby desert, sat it down, launched it,to which thin plastic sandwich rap blew oacross the desert floor, attacked itself to the leg just before it lifted off. The image is black and white rather than color. But, besides the point, ‘government contractors’ possibly working for NASA, or an employee, was instructed to take a trip out to the desert, launch a drone, filmed it in black and white so the surface and atmospheres of earth and Mars wouldn’t be desert able. The probe got launched with plastic debris stuck to one landing leg. NASA probably just went with it and hoped noone would notice. HAh…The image doesn’t show any part of the helicopter except for the bottom of the landing legs. (Seems some engineer/dronecoptor pilot didn’t get all the ‘selephane wrap’ the unit drone/copter was packed in of the unit before the launch. Possibly, the operator of the craft flew it around a few times to get the hang of flying the drone/copter. And upon it’s actual scheduled flight, the pilot didn’t realize one of the landing legs picked up a small piece of plastic debris, considering how small the helicopter on Mars is
      anyway; with four tiny, elongated landing limbs, plus, the fact that the hitchhiking tiny piece of thin nearly clear,
      flexible plastic detached itself from the landing leg’s foot abruptly seconds after it took off. Well, one can only make jokes, as I just did, considering how much of the 1969 moon landing and additional landing that actual astronauts of the moon missions said parts of the ‘EVAs’/footage was faked, well, it’s just one person’s assumed guess as to how a piece of flexible plastic could get caught on the helicopter’s landing leg foot before take off.(Has Mars just been polluted over the past decades,of all the probes launched since Mariner, in the 70’s?) You deside. I mean, look how much trash we have left on the moon and in the moon’s orbit since before 1969,July 20, 6:49PM. Or simply, a piece of of theMars Helicopter actually lost a piece of it’s outside coating; dropped down to the Le’s foot, to which the wind blowing on Mary’s thin atmosphere caused it to somehow get caught on the helicopter. Which possibly means the helicopter’s protective layer is degrading and bits and pieces of it’s outer protective shielding is simply getting ripped off by Martian winds, which has in its thin atmosphere fine ebrasive glass-like dust shards that is tearing away pieces of the helicopters’ protective covering bit by bit.I can only theorize with such black and white limited image footage which looks like it was taken with a low pixel, b/w camera. Just theorizing, with the limited information and imagery regarding this short b/w film clip.

  87. NASA historically has had issues with their videography and photography quality. CGI and Composite imagery are indeed their only hope. After all, it was NASA who unexplainably erased and/or recorded over their telemetry data on vhs(?) that contained the technology that got us to the “moon”. And as Don Petit put it, it’s a painstaking process to get that technology back, which is why they never went back to the moon. Unquote.
    Can you believe that NASA screwed up like that and like magicians made all that footage of Apollo 11 and man’s landing on the moon, all disappear. Unarguably the greatest physical and scientific achievement in human history, and they recorded every episode of MASH instead of sending that historical fake footage and technology somewhere safe. Just throw more money at em, they’ll eventually figure it out. $65,000,000 a day isn’t quite enough to inspire them yet.

  88. Where no plastic bottle has gone before!

  89. Duh.. you all keep saying ‘plastic bags or human debris’ like we are the ONLY species to have ever visited Mars. Or what about the Martians that lived there BEFORE it became uninhabitable, huh?! Come on people, use your heads! Lol

  90. It’s a condom because it’s still on earth

  91. Generally, NASA never finds anything… Nothing behind the moon , nothing around the sun, in the rings of Saturn… And this time, Miraculously, they saw something and rapidly share it with the people. Oh, how honest from you guys 🤣🤣🤣. Thanks, no need to wait for my next incarnation 🤣🤣🤣

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