NASA's helicopter Ingenuity is the first powered flight by an aircraft on another planet.
On Monday, April 19, history was made as NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft to make a "powered, controlled flight on another planet."
The successful flight was confirmed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California when the team received data from the Ingenuity helicopter (via the Mars Rover) at 6:46 a.m. EDT. Ingenuity became airborne at 3:34 a.m. EDT, so it took roughly three hours to confirm the flight.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
"Ingenuity is the latest in a long and storied tradition of NASA projects achieving a space exploration goal once thought impossible," acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said in a statement. "The X-15 was a pathfinder for the space shuttle. Mars Pathfinder and its Sojourner rover did the same for three generations of Mars rovers. 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."
You can watch the history-making flight below:
