Ingenuity – The Solar-Charged Helicopter That Flew on Mars

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter, flight model

The smallest solar vehicle on our site may also be the most famous. Ingenuity was a helicopter of about 1.8 kg that rode to Mars under the belly of the Perseverance rover. On 19 April 2021 it became the first powered aircraft to fly on another planet. NASA called it its “Wright brothers moment“.

Flying on Mars is hard: the air is only about 1% as dense as on Earth. Ingenuity’s two counter-rotating rotors therefore spin very fast. Its energy came from the sun: a solar panel of 42.5 × 16.5 cm on top of the rotor mast charged six Sony lithium-ion cells with about 35–40 Wh. That is about a hundredth of a typical e-bike battery, yet enough for flights of up to about two and a half minutes. Flight time was limited not by the battery but by heat: in the thin air the motors warmed up by about 1 °C per second.

The flight model during testing at JPL in February 2019. Photo: NASA/JPL / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Ingenuity was supposed to make five flights in a 30-day test. It made 72 over almost three years. It scouted routes for Perseverance and often flew ahead of the rover. In the Martian winter of 2022 there was so little solar energy that the helicopter shut down completely every night and had to wake itself up in the morning, and it worked. On 18 January 2024, during flight 72, the rotor blades were damaged on landing over featureless sand, and the mission ended. In total Ingenuity flew 2 hours, 8 minutes and 48 seconds over 1,004 days and covered more than 17 km.

A small piece of fabric from the Wright brothers' 1903 Flyer travelled to Mars under Ingenuity's solar panel. Photo: NASA / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

A small piece of muslin from the 1903 Wright Flyer is attached to a cable under its solar panel. Ingenuity continues the line of solar explorers on our site: Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity and the Soviet Lunokhod rovers.

Technical data

Builder	NASA JPL (USA)
Mission	Mars 2020, carried by the Perseverance rover
Mass	~1.8 kg
Solar	Panel 425 × 165 mm on the rotor mast
Battery	6 Sony Li-ion cells, ~35–40 Wh
First flight	19 April 2021, Jezero crater (first powered flight on another planet)
Total	72 flights, 2 h 8 min 48 s, >17 km, 1,004 days
End	18 January 2024 (rotor damage on flight 72)