NASA's Mars helicopter soars past 1-mile mark in 10th flight over Red Planet - Space.com

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity has flown its first mile on the Red Planet. .

The small chopper surpassed the 1-mile (1.6 km) mark of its total flight distance on Saturday (July 24) when soared over a rocky region called "Raised Ridges" at its Jezero Crater home.

The sortie was the 10th and highest trip yet for Ingenuity, which arrived on Mars with NASA's Perseverance rover in February.

Flight 10 was the most challenging yet for Ingenuity, with 10 different waypoints for the helicopter to hit as it flew over its "Raised Ridges" target.

During the flight, Ingenuity was expected to snap a series of images, including ones that could help scientists create stereo images of the Raised Ridges rocks.

The ridges are an area mission scientists are considering to send the Perseverance rover.

"We will be imaging Raised Ridges because it's an area that Perseverance scientists find intriguing and are considering visiting sometime in the future," JPL mission managers in a July 23 status update.

Originally designed to fly four flights on Mars, the Ingenuity helicopter is the first vehicle to ever attempt powered flight on another world.

(1.8 kilograms) chopper arrived on Mars folded up in the belly of the Perseverance rover and was initially expected to fly only four flights over 30 Martian days (called sols) as a proof of concept. .