NASA’s Robotic Helicopter ‘Ingenuity’ Makes Historic First Flight on Mars
- US Space agency NASA successfully flew its tiny robotic helicopter ‘Ingenuity’ on Mars on April 19, 2021, becoming the first human-made machine to take flight on another planet.
- Ingenuity Mars Helicopter successfully completed the first powered controlled flight by an aircraft on any planet besides Earth on 19 April 2021, taking off vertically, hovering and landing.
- Ingenuity rose 3 m (9.8 ft), hovered there for about 30 seconds, before returning to the surface of Mars with a total flight time of 39.1 seconds.
- After this historic feat, the engineers have named the take-off and landing area in Jezero Crater of Mars as ‘Wright Brothers Field’.