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Why did Ingenuity make history on Mars?
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Mars
An especially serene view of Mars (Tharsis side), a composite of images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in April 1999. The northern polar cap and encircling dark dune field of Vastitas Borealis are visible at the top of the globe. White water-ice clouds surround the most prominent volcanic peaks, including Olympus Mons near the western limb, Alba Patera to its northeast, and the line of Tharsis volcanoes to the southeast. East of the Tharsis rise can be seen the enormous near-equatorial gash that marks the canyon system Valles Marineris.
Ingenuity made history on Mars because it was the first machine to achieve powered flight through the skies of another planet.1
Carried by the Perseverance rover, the small helicopter successfully ascended to a height of 3 meters (10 feet) on April 19, 2021. To honor the history of aviation, the helicopter carried a small piece of fabric from the Wright brothersā plane that performed the first airplane flight on Earth in 1903. Ingenuity ultimately completed 72 flights before its mission concluded in January 2024 due to rotor damage.1