Mars helicopter Ingenuity nails 8th flight on the Red Planet - Space.com

NASA's experimental Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, has now flown eight times on the Red Planet, traveling farther than scientists hoped would be possible.

During the flight, Ingenuity remained aloft for 77.4 seconds, flew 525 feet (160 meters), and landed about 440 feet (133.5 m) away from its companion, the Perseverance rover, according to a tweet from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which operates the helicopter.

Ingenuity is a technology demonstration project that hitchhiked to Mars with NASA's much larger Perseverance rover, which touched down on the Red Planet on Feb.

Before beginning its science work in earnest, Perseverance began its stay on Mars by testing the helicopter and another technology project that can turn carbon dioxide from the Red Planet's thin atmosphere into oxygen.

Related: Watch NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity fly in 3D (video).

So while NASA has not yet announced when the helicopter will make a ninth flight, definitely expect such an outing to come sooner or later. !

Speaking with a group that advises NASA about Mars exploration, the project scientist of the Mars 2020 mission, which includes both Perseverance and Ingenuity, said that Ingenuity could make "a couple flights a month" for "a few more months," Foust reported!