Mars aircraft is recorded in this encyclopedia from the source named below.
Overview
A Mars aircraft is a vehicle capable of sustaining powered flight in the atmosphere of Mars. So far, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity is the only aircraft ever to fly on Mars, completing 72 successful flights covering 17.242 km (10.714 mi) in 2 hours, 8 minutes and 48 seconds of flight time. Ingenuity operated on Mars for 1036 sols (1064 total days; 2 years, 334 days), until it was retired following rotor blade damage. It made the first powered flight on 19 April 2021, taking off from the surface. Previously, the experimental aircraft, NASA Mini-Sniffer, was considered for possible missions to fly in and study Mars's atmosphere, but that idea was abandoned. Aircraft may provide on site measurements of the atmosphere of Mars, as well as additional observations over extended areas. A long-term goal is to develop piloted Mars aircraft. Compared to Earth, the air on Mars is much thinner at the surface, with pressure less than 1% of Earth's at sea level, requiring a more efficient method to achieve lift. Offsetting that disadvantage, Mars air, mostly consisting of carbon dioxide (CO2), is denser per unit of volume than Earth air, and gravity on Mars is less than 40% of Earth's.
Source and reuse
The descriptive text above is drawn from the English-language encyclopedia article Mars aircraft, reused under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence and attributed in the sources block on this page. Figures in the infobox come from Wikidata and carry that project's own provenance; they should be checked against the cited source before being relied on.
Editorial note
This record is a sourced summary, not original research. Where the underlying material is silent on a point, this article is silent too. Last reviewed 2026-09-23.