Practical use on earth I'd suggest is limited (though there's always some trickle across, but it's never the obvious stuff!). However, in terms of planetary exploration it's a pretty big deal.

A long time friend works in that area and just one of their ideas is if you need small samples over a wide area, a sample retrieval system attached to the bottom of an autonomous helicopter that goes and fetches, come home, recharges and dumps the sample, then goes and does it again, allows them to cover huge amounts of territory by comparison to previous vehicles. To put this into context, Opportunity drove 45 or so kilometers in 14 and half years (2004-2018).

One of the uses given by local news is to use the helo to reconnoiter for interesting sites that the rover may then visit, save time and mileage on the rover wandering somewhat randomly looking for something worthwhile.

After more than 18 months on Mars, still active. A flight on 6th Sept. lasting 56 seconds, and 97 meters.
31st sortie - not bad for a “proof-of-concept” trial !


https://www.space.com/mars-helicopte...ht-river-delta

AS ever yet another of NASA's proof of concept vehicles vastly outperforming it's published life and capability.
Amazing stuff.

As of 9 Nov 23 Completing 118.8 flying minutes, covering 9.3 miles (14.9 km), and reaching altitudes as high as 78.7 ft (24.0 m), 66 flights
Space Ingenuity

Made it all the way to Flight 72 before damage during a landing ended the mission

They've done amazingly well with it. An ex colleague of mine wrote his r/c helicopter off ground taxying it for its first ever takeoff and he was standing only a few yards away from it!

So..... Air is 1/140 earth sea level but gravity is 1/3. Mach 1 isn't that fast at all. So it seems rotors wouldn't work at first thought. Hmmm, does it hover? In order to lift, the engine must produce enough HP to accelerate up at 1G (martian) . Then the rotors must convert rotational HP to moving air HP. My first guess would be really big rotors but then Mach 1 comes into play.
Seems like it wouldn't add up.

Blade tip speed was <0,7 Mach. So no problem. JPL already tested the rotor for the next Mars helicopter with speeds up to 0,96 Mach

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter)

skadi

Wondering if they have tried or will try to fly it with that damage?

That would propably destroy Inguenity, with the loss of those big parts of the blade(s) the vibrations will exeed the limits for a safe flight and I am sure the produced lift won't be enough anyway.

skadi

You need to keep it intact for Elon's museum.

If an aircraft is "grounded" on earth it is "???" on Mars..

A slim flexible strengthening rim might have been in order, not only to protect Martian locals from the naked blades.

Don’t they have ground on Mars?