Before Ingenuity ever landed on Mars, scientists almost managed to kill it

Enlarge / This is the final photo that Perseverance took of Ingenuity before moving away from its final resting spot. (credit: NASA/Simeon Schmauß)

MiMi Aung could barely contain her excitement as she drove up Oak Grove Drive, the leafy thoroughfare leading to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Aung had spent her formative years in Burma and Malaysia, two countries without a space program. A career in aerospace seemed beyond her reach. Yet here she was, at 22 years old, with a job interview to possibly work on the Deep Space Network. Aung dreamed of helping NASA intercept and amplify faint signals sent back to Earth from humanity’s farthest-flung spacecraft, including the Voyagers.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Aung said.