The Wright Brother’s flyer made history more than 100 years ago, and it is doing so once again.
At least a small piece of the plane that flew at Kitty Hawk has left its Earthly home and will be part of a mission on the Red Planet, NASA said.
Ingenuity, a small helicopter attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover currently on its mission on Mars, is following in the proverbial flight path of the Wright Flyer as the small remote-controlled aircraft is ready to do the first powered controlled flight on another planet. The Wright Flyer was the first powered controlled flight on Earth.
A small piece of the Wright Flyer wing covering has been put on board the Ingenuity.
A piece of insulation tape wrapped a piece of the Wright Brothers’ fabric on a cable that’s under the helicopter’s solar panel, NASA said.
This isn’t the first time a piece of the flyer’s fabric has gone to space. The Apollo 11 crew took a different piece with them to the moon, as well as a piece of wood from the plane in July 1969.
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