Relying on remote data, including photographs taken after the flight, the investigators believe that “navigation errors created high horizontal velocities at touchdown,” which most likely resulted in Ingenuity experiencing a “hard impact on the sand ripple’s slope,” causing it to pitch and roll.

The first aircraft to achieve a powered, controlled flight on another planet, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter, crashed on Mars 11 months ago when its navigation system became befuddled by a bland, featureless stretch of terrain and slammed so hard into the Martian surface that the tips of its rotor blades snapped.