Ingenuity travelled to Mars attached to the underside of the Perseverance rover, arriving at the Octavia E. Butler Landing site in Jezero crater on 18 February 2021. It deployed on 3 April 2021,^[5][6][7] and after unloading the drone Perseverance drove approximately 100 m (330 ft) away to allow it a safe “buffer zone” in which it made its first flight.^[14][15] First takeoff was on 19 April 2021 at 07:15 UTC, with livestreaming 3 hours later at 10:15 UTC confirming the flight.^{[16][17][18][19][20][21]} Ingenuity rose 3 m (9.8 ft), hovered there for about 30 seconds, before returning to the surface of Mars with a total flight time of 39.1 seconds.^[22]

Ingenuity is expected to fly up to five times during its 30-day test campaign scheduled early in the rover’s mission. Primarily technology demonstrations,^[1][23] each flight is planned to fly at altitudes ranging from 3–5 m (10–16 ft) above the ground for up to 90 seconds each.^[1] Ingenuity, which can travel up to 50 m (160 ft) downrange and then back to the starting area,^[1] will use autonomous control during its short flights, which will be telerobotically planned and scripted by operators at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It will communicate directly with the Perseverance rover after each landing.

Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity helicopter, MiMi Aung is the project manager, Håvard Fjær Grip is the Chief Pilot, and Bob Balaram is Chief Engineer.^[24] Other contributors include AeroVironment, Inc., the NASA Ames Research Center, and the NASA Langley Research Center.