Kudos to the little guy - from CNBC:
NASA flies and lands helicopter on Mars, the first flight on another planet
NASA on Monday successfully conducted the first controlled flight on another planet — its Mars helicopter Ingenuity flew a short flight in what the agency described as “a Wright Brothers moment” in space.
“Ingenuity is reporting having performed spin up, takeoff, climb, hover, descent, landing and spin down,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight control said on a webcast.
And the payload was really sweet:
The helicopter carried a tiny piece of fabric from the wing of Flyer 1, the Wright brothers’ aircraft that in 1903 made the first powered flights on Earth.
“Like the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, we know that our time to make a difference at Jezero Crater, Mars is not yet over – this is just the first great flight,” JPL’s MiMi Aung, the Ingenuity’s project manager, said on the webcast.
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