In a first, Nasa’s Ingenuity helicopter makes history with flight on Mars

America’s space agency Nasa successfully performed a successful take-off and landing on Mars of its miniature helicopter Ingenuity early on Monday, achieving the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft over the surface of another planet. Nasa officials compared the event to the first flight by Wright brothers in 1903. The test flight took place at 3.30am US eastern daylight time on the floor of Martian land called Jezero Crater. The helicopter lifted up about 3 metres, hovered for 30 seconds, swiveled and then landed back on Mars, the space agency said.

In a video shared by Nasa on Twitter, engineers can be seen cheering in the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California as an image was transmitted back to Earth by the Ingenuity helicopter which showed its shadow looming over the surface of Mars during its flight.

Scientists believe that this could give a boost to the mission to find signs of life on the Red Planet. The helicopter which is equipped with four spindly legs and a solar panel, costs about $80 million. Marking a tribute to Wright brothers, Ingenuity has a postage-sized bit of fabric from the aircraft they designed, known as the Flyer, attached to a cable under the solar panel.

The space agency believes that if everything goes according to its plan, the Ingenuity helicopter could make as many as five flights in the coming weeks. Ahead of the flight, MiMi Aung, Nasa’s Ingenuity project manager, wrote in a blog on Nasa’s website that the flight is risky but the agency will make all the efforts possible to make it a success.

“Our team considers Monday’s attempted first flight like a rocket launch: We’re doing everything we can to make it a success, but we also know that we may have to scrub and try again,” Aung said in the post on Sunday.