Christian Elliott

Then the first images came down.

Mars seen from above from a helicopter point of view for the first time ever.

The team got its Wright brothers moment.

Here's the sound of Ingenuity flying on Mars.

The team tore up their contingency speech, which they'd written up in case the helicopter crashed.

Then it was time to fly again.

For the next two flights, everything was planned out to the T and simulated tons of times in advance.

On each of those flights, ingenuity performed perfectly.

The demonstration mission was accomplished.

And Ingenuity was still ready for more.

So NASA said, keep on going.

Fly this little helicopter further and explore Mars.

I'm sure you're wondering, what is it actually like to fly a helicopter on another planet?

Yeah, exactly.

Hovard is more than 100 million miles away from Ingenuity in that control room at JPL.

So he says it's mostly about anticipating what Mars will throw at you.

You send Ingenuity instructions, and the helicopter tries to follow them as best it can.

What blows my mind is the team was not expecting this to go so well.

Hovard was hoping for one successful flight.

But Ingenuity flew dozens of times over three years, covering more than 10 miles.