Fourth Flight a Success for NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter successfully completed a fourth, more challenging flight on the Red Planet on April 30, 2021.

Flight Test No. 4 aimed for a longer flight time, longer distance, and more image capturing to begin to demonstrate its ability to serve as a scout on Mars. Ingenuity climbed to an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) before flying south and back for an 872-foot (266-meter) round trip. In total, Ingenuity was in the air for 117 seconds, another set of records for the helicopter. The fourth flight lifted off from and returned to “Wright Brothers Field” in Jezero Crater, Mars.

The Ingenuity team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California determined that the flight was successful after receiving data from the helicopter and imagery from the Perseverance Mars rover.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet on April 19, 2021.

Perseverance touched down at Octavia E. Butler Landing with Ingenuity attached to its belly on Feb. 18, 2021. The helicopter was deployed to the surface of Jezero Crater on April 3.

For more information on this flight, visit the Ingenuity blog.