The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and FAA oversee investigations of aircraft accidents in U.S. airspace. But what happens when a crash occurs hundreds of millions of miles away in outer space?
Engineers with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California and uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) manufacturer Aerovironment, a prominent aerospace and defense contractor, are conducting what the space agency on Wednesday said is the first aircraft accident investigation on another world. Personnel are examining the final flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which hurtled into the Red Planet’s surface and was retired in January.
