NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter conducts historic maiden flight on Mars

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter made history on Monday, successfully conducting the first-ever powered, controlled flight on Mars. 

The flight was originally planned for April 11 but was postponed over a software issue identified during a planned high speed-test of the helicopter’s rotors, AFP reported.

“Altimeter data confirms that Ingenuity has performed the first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet,” an engineer in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.  

Footage sent back from the Perseverence rover shows the four pound (1.8 kilogram) helicopter hovered three metres above the Martian surface before landing back down. 

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Ingenuity itself sent back a still black-and-white image from its downward pointing camera, showing its own shadow cast on the surface.

“We can now say that human beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet!” said lead engineer MiMi Aung to her team.

“We’ve been talking so long about our Wright brothers’ moment on Mars, and here it is,” she added.

The first powered flight on Earth was achieved by Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

A piece of fabric from that plane has been tucked inside Ingenuity in honor of that feat.