NASA's tenacious drone sweeps over Mars in farthest flight yet

The little helicopter did it again.

Ingenuity, a small 4-pound robotic scout that hitched a ride to the Red Planet last year, has recently sent back video documentation of its farthest and fastest flight yet. On April 8, it traveled less than half a mile at 12 mph.

A rare bird's eye view of the Martian terrain was captured by the helicopter's black-and-white navigation camera. Teddy Tzanetos, leader of the NASA Ingenuity team, said in a statement that the camera is downward-facing and offers a "breathtaking sense of what it would feel like gliding 33 feet above the surface of Mars."

In the video, Ingenuity soars through Mars with a thin atmosphere over rippling sand, then midway through the journey, the landscape changes to rocky fields. The helicopter drops down for a smooth landing after flying over a flat area.

It took 2.5 minutes for the record-breaking feat to be completed, but it took 39 seconds for the first flight. NASA increased the video's speed fivefold and reduced its time to 35 seconds.

Tweet may have been deleted

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California programmed Ingenuity's flights 300 million miles from Earth. The plans are sent to the Perseverance Mars rover, which relays them to the helicopter. While Ingenuity flies, the aircraft's sensors help guide it.

The helicopter has performed better than expected. Engineers wanted to prove they could fly a robot. Ingenuity has flown at least 28 times.

Mission control lost contact with Ingenuity while the helicopter was in power-conserving mode. Communication was restored after the solar panels were charged.