NASA announced Friday that Ingenuity successfully completed its fourth flight, which saw the small helicopter fly farther and faster than ever before.
The $85 million drone traveled 872 feet (266 meters) at a height of 16 feet (5 meters) for two minutes.
The American space agency received the data downlink at 1:39pm ET that showed the copter took off from Wright Brothers Field under the watchful gaze of the Perseverance rover at 10:12am ET.
Perseverance, which sat some 210 feet away, snapped a picture of its travel companion s fourth flight through the thin atmosphere on Mars. Success. #MarsHelicopter completed 4th flight, going farther & faster than ever before. It also took more photos as it flew over the Martian surface. We expect those images will come down in a later data downlink, but @NASAPerseverance s Hazcam caught part of the flight, NASA s JPL shared on Twitter.