NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter Breaks Altitude Record on Mars

Ingenuity helicopters for Mars cruise (photo: dock. NASA JPL)

JAKARTA - The United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Ingenuity helicopter to Mars again on Saturday, September 16.

With this 59th launch, Ingenuity has set a new record. Quoted from Space, an official from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced that Ingenuity had completed its 59th flight.

The completion of this flight was marked by a record-breaking altitude of 20 meters or 66 feet. This helicopter was recorded as having spent 142.59 seconds in the air.

Before breaking the record of 20 meters, the highest height that Ingenuity had was 18 meters or 59 feet. However, the record for flight distance and duration still stands at 705 meters and 169.5 seconds, recorded in April 2022 and August 2021 respectively.

So far, with its 59 flight missions, Ingenuity has covered a total distance of 13,304 meters or the equivalent of 43,652 feet. Apart from that, Ingenuity managed to survive a total of 106.5 minutes in the air.

Ingenuity is a small helicopter that was flown to Mars with NASA's Perseverance rover to search for geological features and help humans explore locations that cannot be reached by the rover.

Apart from that, Ingenuity also helps with exploration on Mars to prove that air can be found even though the atmosphere on this planet is relatively thin.