Early Monday morning, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter completed its maiden voyage on Mars, rising about 10 feet into the air above the red planet’s surface. It was the first controlled flight ever performed on another planet.
Reuters reports that mission operators at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California burst into applause as they received the data from Mars confirming that the four-pound copter had completed its April 19 flight as planned.
The event has been heralded as a “Wright brothers moment,” The Associated Press reports, a fitting description given that the small aircraft is carrying a piece of fabric from the Wright Flyer, the Wright brothers’ plane that flew for the first time over a century ago.
According to a release published by NASA on April 19, the Ingenuity copter ascended to its coordinated maximum altitude of 10 feet and steadily hovered there for 30 seconds. The craft then descended back on to the planet’s surface, touching back down approximately 39 seconds after takeoff. You can watch the full flight here:
CNN reports that Ingenuity was previously scheduled to take its maiden flight on April 11, but those plans changed when a sequencing issue was discovered as the aircraft was undergoing its preflight checks. After a few tweaks, the operations team at JPL received data on April 16 showing the aircraft successfully completed its rapid spin test and was ready to fly.
“We don’t know exactly where Ingenuity will lead us, but today’s results indicate the sky — at least on Mars — may not be the limit,” NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said (via NASA).
The small aircraft has up to four more test flights scheduled over the next several days that will push it to higher altitudes and more far-ranging distances, CBS News reports.
The site adds that after those flights conclude, the Perseverance rover — the craft that transported the Ingenuity helicopter and is recording its flights — will abandon the copter to begin its primary mission, looking for signs of ancient microbial life in dried lakebed deposits of Mars’ Jezero Crater.