First in Flight, Twice Over 

NASA's extra little touches are often so good.

With any luck, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter will fly from the surface of Mars next month. Its main purpose is to test and demonstrate the technology, but even so, it’s going to be pretty incredible. When Ingenuity flies above Mars, it will be the first known powered flight on a planet besides Earth.

To mark that occasion, NASA included a tiny scrap of muslin underneath Ingenuity’s solar panel. The fabric came from the Wright Flyer, the craft which made humanity’s first powered flight here on Earth.