The Wright brothers’ first plane is now on Mars

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) – A piece of the Wright brothers’ first plane is on Mars.

NASA’s Martian experimental helicopter has a small piece of fabric from the 1903 Wright Flyer, the space agency revealed on Tuesday. The helicopter, called Ingeniousness, took a ride on the red planet with the Perseverance rover, which arrived last month.

The ingenuity will try the first motorized and controlled flight on another planet no earlier than April 8. It will mark a “Wright Brothers moment,” said Bobby Braun, director of planetary science at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The Carillon Historic Park in Dayton, Ohio, Wright’s hometown, donated a piece of mail-sized muslin from the lower left wing of the plane at NASA’s request.

The specimen made the 300 million-mile journey to Mars with the blessing of the Wright brothers’ great-granddaughter and great-grandson, said park curator Steve Lucht.

“Wilbur and Orville Wright would be delighted to learn that a small piece of the 1903 Wright Flyer I, the car that launched it was only a quarter of a mile space, will go up in history again!” Amanda Wright Lane and Stephen Wright said in a statement provided by the park.

Orville Wright was on board for the world’s first controlled flight on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The brothers lined up, making four flights that day.

A piece of wood and fabric Wright Flyer flew to the moon with Neil Armstrong of Apollo 11 in 1969. A specimen accompanied John Glenn into orbit aboard the Discovery spacecraft in 1998. Both astronauts were from Ohio.

NASA’s 4-kilogram (1.8-kilogram) helicopter will attempt to climb 3 meters into the extremely thin Martian air on its first jump. Within a month, up to five larger and longer flights are planned.

The material is glued to a cable under the helicopter’s solar panel, which is perched on top like a graduate’s mortar plate.

For now, ingenuity remains attached to the rover’s belly. A protective shield was removed over the weekend, exposing the long-legged helicopter.

The helicopter’s airfield is right next to the rover’s landing site in Jezero Crater. The rover will observe the test flights from a distant perch before leaving to fulfill its own mission: to hunt down the signs of ancient Martian life. The rock samples will be set aside for a possible return to Earth.

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