NASA's Ingenuity helicopter makes first historic flight on Mars

A helicopter has made the first ever flight on another planet, NASA has said.

The Ingenuity mini-helicopter took to the Martian skies this morning - hovering 10ft (three metres) in the air before touching back down on the planet's surface, the space agency said.

It marks NASA's first attempt at a powered, controlled flight on another planet.

Image:Ingenuity's successful flight is the first time human beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet

The news was met by cheers and applause at mission control, and pictures from the mission showed the craft hovering.

MiMi Aung, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said: "We can now say that human beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet."

Data from the flight will return from Mars to Earth in a few hours' time.

Image:The NASA team cheered as Ingenuity hovered 10ft of the ground

Image:It was NASA's first attempt at a powered, controlled flight on another planet

NASA's

Perseverance rover provided support during flight operations, taking images, collecting environmental data, and hosting the base station that enabled the helicopter to communicate with mission controllers on Earth.

Ingenuity works autonomously and cannot be controlled by NASA due to the distance between Earth and

Mars

• it takes more than 11 minutes to get a radio signal back to Earth.

The original flight date of 11 April was postponed as engineers worked on pre-flight checks and a solution to a command sequence issue.

Standing at just 50cm tall, the helicopter weighs 1.8kg on Earth, but is a mere 0.68kg on Mars because of the red planet's lower gravity.

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The rotor blades, which measure 1.2m across, rotated 40 times a second to get enough power to lift off in the Martian atmosphere - which is about 100 times thinner than Earth's.

Ingenuity first arrived at the planet's Jezero Crater on 18 February after an eight-month journey spanning nearly 300 million miles, tucked inside the belly of the

Perseverance rover

.

After the spacecraft landed, it dropped the drone onto the ground so Ingenuity could prepare for its maiden flight.

One of Ingenuity's key objectives was to survive the "bone-chilling temperatures" of the red planet, with "nights as cold as minus 90C", NASA said ahead of the flight.

Ingenuity will attempt additional experimental flights, travelling further distances and at increasing altitudes.

All together the helicopter will aim for up to five test flights within 30 Martian days.