NASA's Ingenuity helicopter just flew for the 31st time on Mars, acing a short hop that took it close to an ancient Red Planet river Delta.
According to the mission team's flight log, Ingenuity flew for 56 seconds and covered a distance of over 100 meters.
NASA's Perseverance rover has been exploring the remnants of a long-dry river Delta for the past five months or so.
Ingenuity is the first aircraft to fly on red planet.
In February of 2021, Ingenuity and Perseverance landed together inside the Jezero Crater, which was once home to a big lake and a river.
Perseverance is trying to find signs of ancient Mars life and collect samples for future return to Earth. Ingenuity helps the Perseverance team pick the best driving routes and find scientifically promising rock targets.
It's not the role that Ingenuity was originally assigned to, it's a technology demonstrator that was designed for a five-flight mission to show that a helicopter can fly in the Martian atmosphere.
Ingenuity was granted an extension to perform more focused work after it aced the prime mission.
The first flight for Ingenuity since August was on Tuesday. The purpose of the August 20 sortie was to make sure Ingenuity was still flying after two months of relative inactiveness.
Ingenuity had been put on hold because of the cold and dusty winter weather.
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