Jet Propulsion Laboratory project manager MiMi Aung gave an enthusiastic two thumbs-up and then clenched fists before a roomful of engineers erupted in applause.
The tiny helicopter took off and hovered briefly — the first such flight on another planet. The Perseverance rover kept tabs on the mission from a viewing point about 60 yards away.
The successful deployment of Ingenuity brings NASA one step closer to its first attempt at testing the possibility of powered, controlled flight on another planet.
Lunney, who played an integral role in the agency's Apollo program, died Friday. He was credited for his quick decision-making during the race to save the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts.
The NASA rover traversed some 21 feet of terrain this week, in its first test drive since landing on the red planet. It also captured photos of its touchdown site and the wheel tracks it left behind.
The supply ship is named for Katherine Johnson, a Black NASA mathematician portrayed in the 2016 film. It's bringing some 8,000 pounds supplies and hardware to the International Space Station.
Following a 300 million-mile voyage through space and a dangerous drop to the surface, Perseverance will be put through its paces before getting to a search for ancient Martian life.
Perseverance, set to land on the Red Planet on Thursday, is carrying the most sophisticated robotic biology lab ever launched and a drone meant to make the first-ever powered flight on another world.
Another six-wheeled rover is about to land on Mars. NASA Perseverance's mission is headed to Jezero Crater, which once may have been a lake. It's carrying two new items: a microphone and a helicopter.
The test was for NASA's Space Launch System, a successor to the retired Space Shuttle program. It takes eight minutes to generate the power needed to get to space, and ultimately to the moon.
Four astronauts are scheduled to take a SpaceX capsule to the International Space Station on Saturday. NASA hopes to demonstrate the safety and reliability of regular crew transportation to the ISS.
A NASA spacecraft sent out to collect rocks from an asteroid seems to have nabbed a lot of material, but there's now an unexpected problem — a flap isn't closing because some rocks are stuck.
NASA is getting ready to collect its first sample from an asteroid ever. The rocks and dust could help us understand potentially dangerous space rocks and the history of the solar system.
None of us are perfect, and sometimes the Hubble Space Telescope just flat-out points to the wrong spot in the sky. This has been happening more than ever in the last couple years.
The light of the moon will reduce the visibility of some fainter meteors, but NASA says it's still worth staying up late — or rising very very early on Wednesday — to see "nature's fireworks."
NASA and SpaceX are welcoming home two astronauts who splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico after several months on the International Space Station.
The two NASA astronauts who flew on the SpaceX craft to the International Space Station in May are scheduled to return to Earth on Sunday. But there's a hurricane forecast for the splashdown vicinity.
The launch of the $10 billion spacecraft, which scientists hope will see back to the time when the first galaxies were formed, has been rescheduled for Oct. 31, 2021.
The agency will name its Washington, D.C., headquarters after the pioneering scientist whose Space Race-era contributions gained recognition in the 2016 film Hidden Figures.
Kathy Sullivan traveled to Challenger Deep, nearly seven miles beneath the surface of the South Pacific. Already an accomplished astronaut, Sullivan made history with her trip to the site.
The docking came above China and Mongolia as the ISS was traveling at 17,000 mph. It docked 19 hours after the historic launch with NASA astronauts from the Kennedy Space Center.
