INGENUITY Mug

For all generations. Ingenuity - “The little helicopter that could” (see on logo) is a small robotic helicopter operating on Mars as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. On April 19, 2021, it successfully completed the first powered controlled flight by an aircraft on a planet besides Earth, taking off vertically, hovering and landing for a flight duration of 39.1 seconds. Ingenuity is operated by solar-charged batteries that power dual counter-rotating rotors mounted one above the other. The helicopter has made 13 successful flights as of September 4, 2021. Ingenuity travelled to Mars attached to the underside of the rover Perseverance, which touched down at the Octavia E. Butler Landing site in Jezero crater on February 18, 2021.The helicopter was deployed to the surface on April 3, 2021. Ingenuity carries a piece of fabric from the wing of the 1903 Wright Flyer, the Wright Brothers' airplane used in the first controlled powered heavier-than-air flight on Earth. The initial take-off and landing area for Ingenuity is named Wright Brothers Field as a tribute. Before Ingenuity, the first flight of any kind on a planet beyond Earth was an unpowered balloon flight on Venus, by the Soviet Vega 1 spacecraft in 1985. (Part source Wikipedia)