NASA’s ingenuity helicopter has just completed a much more ambitious third flight. According to Space.com,

NASA’s Mars helicopter travels faster on the third flight

(just over half the length of a football field) at a speed of about 4.5 MPH. It may not seem like much, but the ingenuity traveled only 13 feet at 1.1 MPH during the second flight – it was so far that you almost had to squeeze in to see the ingenuity in the photo above.

Successes so far will have a significant impact on the future exploration of Mars.

The ingenuity is proof that aircraft can fly on the planet, despite its very low atmospheric density, and now there is a good chance that subsequent missions will use drones to search for Mars from perspectives that were simply not available before.