NASA just made history by flying an autonomous helicopter on Mars

NASA has made history after successfully conducting the first-ever controlled flight on another planet. The space agency’s Ingenuity helicopter briefly flew over Mars this morning, in what NASA previously described as a “Wright Brothers” moment. The 1.8 kg chopper ascended three meters above the red planet, hovered for around 30 seconds, made a turn, and then touched back down on the Martian surface. “We can now say that human beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet,” said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechIngenuity took this photo while hovering over Mars. [Read: The biggest…

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