On 2021 February 18, the Ingenuity helicopter arrived on the surface of Mars on the underside of the Perseverance rover. Ingenuity was managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
It landed near the western rim of the Jezero crater. Because
of the time delay for radio signals to travel from Earth to Mars it could not be controlled manually in real time and so it was
programmed to fly autonomously from plans uploaded to it from JPL.
The Ingenuity helicopter completed 72 flights above the surface
of the red planet. The following table lists the many firsts
accomplished by this UAV.
- Ingenuity was the first helicopter on another planet
- Ingenuity completed 72 flights
- Ingenuity flew 18 kilometres
- Ingenuity spent over 128 minutes in flight
- Ingenuity spent just under 3 years active on Mars
- Ingenuity reached a highest altitude of 24 metres
- Ingenuity assisted the Perseverance rover by scouting out the rocky martian terrain