NASA's Ingenuity helicopter makes maiden flight on Mars in a "Wright brothers moment"

After overcoming an earlier software glitch, NASA's $80 million Ingenuity helicopter spun up its carbon-composite rotors and lifted off the dusty surface of Mars early Monday to become the first aircraft to fly on another planet, a "Wright brothers moment" that could pave the way to future interplanetary aircraft.

Tipping the scales at just 4 pounds — 1.5 pounds in the lower gravity of Mars — Ingenuity's counter-rotating 4-foot-long rotors, spinning at more than 2,500 rpm, were commanded to change their pitch, "biting" deeper into the thin atmosphere for a liftoff from the floor of Jezero Crater around 3:30 a.m. EDT. With the Perseverance rover looking on from a safe distance, Ingenuity climbed 10 feet straight up, hovered, turned in place and then landed to complete a test flight spanning just 40 seconds or so.