Nasa dubbed it the little helicopter that could. But the space agency's Ingenuity drone, which has made history achieving the first powered flight on Mars, has suffered irreparable damage, and its mission on the red planet is now at an end. It recently performed an emergency landing and was damaged in the process. Nasa has since released this image showing the shadow of the damaged rotor at the end there. You can see it. It's flown 72 times in the last three years, proving it is possible with the right technology to take off in the planet's ultra-thin atmosphere. Here's the NASA administrator, Bill Nelson.

It is bittersweet that I must announce that Ingenuity, the little helicopter that could, and it kept saying, I think I can, I think I can. Well, it has now taken its last flight on Mars.

What a shame. Let's speak to Nicky Fox. She's the Associate Administrator for Science at NASA. Welcome to the program, Nicky. What was it about this helicopter that enabled to fly?

Oh, amazing technology. It had a very specially designed rotor. The actual blades were specially designed. They had a very special contour in them. Of course, they were designed of a very ultra-lightweight material. That was an amazing technology leap for us to enable our incredible Ingenuity helicopter to take the very first flight on another planet.

Yeah, and over flights. What happened on this one? Why did it go wrong?

On the previous flight, on the 71st flight, we know that actually we lost contact with it during the flight, and we believe it actually had a hard landing. So it didn't land as we wanted it to. So we actually lost contact with it. And it was a big, big, big wrench for us. We lost contact with it at the end of last week. I think a lot of us started to fear the worst at that point. But then the plucky little helicopter turned back on on Saturday, and we got back, and I think everyone's hopes went back up.

We've made contact with the helicopter. Still sending images. For those who perhaps haven't followed its progress and what it's been sending back, what marvels have you seen as a result of this helicopter flying over the planet?

Well, I think the fact that it flew way further and way higher than we actually thought it would be able to do. But it gave us just a different view. Obviously, we've got the incredible Mars rovers that are driving around the planet and sending us, I like to call it the daily postcard that we get whenever Perseverance sends us back an amazing image. But ingenuity just gave us a very different perspective. And it literally is like, imagine taking a helicopter ride over your house. It looks completely different if you drive past it from the street. So it just gave us a very, very different view. And as the administrator actually notes, if you watch all of his incredible video, it actually was scouting out for the Perseverance Rover. So ingenuity could fly out and look at the area that we were then going to send Perseverance into to take the samples.

Phenomenal. So where does this take us? Because obviously the objective is to get man onto the red planet. How would that technology be and used to the benefit of the first team that gets there?

Well, I mean, actually a very similar way. If you think about it, the ability to actually scout out and check the areas that we would be sending our crew into Again, to take samples, to do that incredible science that our astronauts do. But that ability to basically have an advanced scouting party that can fly out.

But you wouldn't expand it and enlarge it to put people on so that they could travel.

You wouldn't be able to do We couldn't do it today, but stay tuned.

I like it. That is very tantalizing. Just one last thought. Now that you don't, very briefly, you don't have that ability now, what is left on the planet that is sending information back?

We still, of course, have our two rovers, curiosity and perseverance. Perseverance will continue. Actually, perseverance right now is sending down all of the remaining data from Ingenuity. Ingenuity sends the data through Perseverance. Right now, Perseverance is staying where it is, and it will make sure we have every single bit of the precious data from Ingenuity down. And then once that's finished, Perseverance will then drive away and continue to its traverse of Mars, taking more samples.

Extraordinary. Nicky Fox, good to talk to you. We'll be right back.