Ingenuity Fist Bump

Ingenuity team lead Josh Anderson celebrates with Perseverance rover deputy project manager Steve Lee during the final shift for engineers working on NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 16, 2024. The team for the first aircraft on another world gathered to review a transmission that confirmed a software patch allowing Ingenuity to act as a stationary testbed and collect data that could benefit future explorers of the Red Planet. Originally designed as short-lived technology demonstration mission that would perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, the first aircraft on another world operated from the Martian surface for almost three years, flew more than 14 times farther than planned, and logged more than two hours of total flight time. Its 72nd and final flight was Jan. 18, 2024. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26317