Last Updated: NASA's Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Completes Second Flight, Soars 'higher' NASA Ingenuity helicopter successfully carried out its second flight on Mars on April 22. This comes after completing its successful flight on April 19. (Image Credits: NASAJPL/Twitter) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ingenuity helicopter successfully carried out its second flight on Mars on April 22. The hop lasted 51.9 seconds facing several challenges including a higher maximum altitude, longer duration, and sideways movement. The success comes after the US space agency successfully completed its first flight Mars flight on April 19. According to NASA, Ingenuity second flight took off at 5:33 a.m. EDT (2:33 am PDT), or 12:33 p.m local Mars time. The flight topped out at 10 feet above the surface and climbed to an altitude of 16 feet. After the helicopter hovered, its flight control system performed a slight 5-degree tilt, allowing some of the thrust from the counter-rotating rotors to accelerate the craft sideways for 7 feet. As per the website of NASA, operating an aircraft in a controlled manner at Mars is far more difficult than flying one on Earth.