NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully makes historic first flight

Washington: NASA has made significant strides in space exploration. NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter successfully completes the first flight with Perseverance rover. Ingenuity is the first manned spacecraft on another planet. NASA has released live footage of the helicopter conducting a test flight to Mars. The helicopter operates on solar energy. It flew at an altitude of 30 meters, stood for 30 seconds, and then descended safely. The helicopter team was in mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, early Monday morning to receive and analyze the first data from Ingenuity’s flight attempt.

Confirmation of the flight’s success came at 6:46 a.m. Images, in addition to the data, also helped the team confirm that the flight was successful. “Ingenuity is the latest in a long and storied tradition of NASA projects achieving a space exploration goal once thought impossible,” said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk.  “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.”