The Ingenuity helicopter is a success and has proven that a small aircraft can take off from the ground on another planet. After five successful flights in the spring of 2021, the small 1.8 kg aircraft continued to set new distance and altitude records.

The Ingenuity experiment cost $85 million, which is about 3% of the total cost of the Perseverance mission ($2.7 billion). Seven years ago, those who came up with this helicopter worked hard to convince NASA management that the small helicopter deserved a place in the “belly” of the rover, full of super scientific equipment. Now it is clear that it was worth it, if only because in the spring of 2021, Ingenuity was talked about and written more than about the rest of the experiments combined.

In more than a year and a half, Ingenuity took off from the ground 36 times, stayed in the air for more than an hour and flew a total distance of 7.5 km, writes space.com.

On December 10, he flew for 60 seconds, covering a distance of 110 meters. On December 3, it reached a maximum height of 14 meters above the ground in the area of ​​the Jezero crater.

NASA has proven that it can add an “aerial dimension” to the explorations successfully carried out by various rovers over the past 24 years on Mars. Initially, Ingenuity was conceived as a simple experiment without scientific equipment on board, but after successful flights, the small aircraft assisted the rover in its work and thus gained an important role in the mission.

The primary mission is to find traces of fossil life on Mars, and Ingenuity is helping by flying over sites of scientific interest beyond the reach of the rover. It takes aerial photos to help Perseverance pick the easiest route through the rocky terrain of Lake Crater, for example, so Ingenuity is a sort of “scout” that takes aerial reconnaissance flights.