【About】

One of humanity's most successful aerial missions isn't happening anywhere near Earth.

In early December,About NASA's experimental helicopter, Ingenuity, whirled its four-foot-long rotor blades and flew on Mars for the 35th time. The space agency's four-pound chopper (it weighs just 1.5 pounds on the smaller, less massive Red Planet) ascended to 46 feet above the desert floor, its highest altitude ever — and the highest-ever flight of a powered aircraft on another world.

"An all-time high for the #MarsHelicopter!" NASA tweeted on Dec. 6. "Ingenuity completed Flight 35 over the weekend and set a new max altitude record, hitting 46 ft (14 meters) above the Martian surface."

---

You May Also Like

---

---

SEE ALSO: Why landing a spaceship on the moon is still so challenging

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Ingenuity flew for 52 seconds, reaching nearly 7 miles per hour while traveling 15 feet horizontally.

This extraterrestrial aerial mission, which is still a flight demo, continues to vastly exceed NASA's expectations. "Less than a year ago we didn’t even know if powered, controlled flight of an aircraft at Mars was possible," Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement earlier this year. "Now, we are looking forward to Ingenuity’s involvement in [the Mars Perseverance rover's] second science campaign. Such a transformation of mindset in such a short period is simply amazing, and one of the most historic in the annals of air and space exploration."

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Flying on Mars isn't easy. This arid world has a profoundly thin atmosphere, with just one percent the surface air pressure of Earth. "This means there are relatively few air molecules with which Ingenuity’s two 4-foot-wide (1.2-meter-wide) rotor blades can interact to achieve flight," explains NASA.

The Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, as seen from the Perseverance rover. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

Yet the experimental rotor blades catch enough air to repeatedly take-off, fly, and land safely without direct human control. NASA engineers beam flight instructions to the nearby Perseverance rover — a car-sized exploration robot — which then transmits the next aerial mission to Ingenuity.

---

Related Stories

---

• NASA is back in the moon business. Here's what that means.
• NASA spaceship beams back really eerie images of the moon
• The mega-comet hurtling through our solar system is 85, yes 85, miles wide
• The best telescopes for gazing at stars and solar eclipses in 2024
• If a scary asteroid will actually strike Earth, here's how you'll know

Want more scienceand tech news delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newslettertoday.

As long as the small, dusty helicopter holds up, Ingenuity will continue to journey through Mars with Perseverance. The machines are currently exploring the dried-up delta in Mars' Jezero Crater, a place planetary scientists believe once hosted a lake.

"This delta is one of the best locations on Mars for the rover to look for signs of past microscopic life," NASA said.

(Editor: {typename type="name"/})