NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity completed its 22nd flight over the weekend, the space agency announced.

"The trip lasted 101.4 seconds and Ingenuity got up to 33 feet in the air," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a tweet Monday. "The team is planning another flight perhaps as early as later this week."

During its first 21 flights, Ingenuity flew a total of 15,247 feet and stayed in the air for nearly 39 minutes, according to a flight log from the mission team.

Ingenuity has been scouting possible routes and destinations for Perseverance as the rover hunts for signs of ancient life on Mars.

The pair landed in Mars' Jezero Crater in February 2021, a site that hosted a lake and river delta billions of years ago.

Also Tuesday, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an image of China's Zhurong rover on the surface.

The spacecraft's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera captured abut 0.93 miles of tracks Zhurong has made traveling since landing in May 2021, showing it inspected the parachute and backshell that helped it land on the planet and surveyed surface features such as dunes.

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NASA extends Ingenuity Helicopter Mission
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 17, 2022
NASA has extended flight operations of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter through September. In the months ahead, history's first aircraft to operate from the surface of another world will support the Perseverance rover's upcoming science campaign exploring the ancient river delta of Jezero Crater. Along the way, it will continue testing its own capabilities to support the design of future Mars air vehicles. The announcement comes on the heels of the rotorcraft's 21st successful flight, the first of at ... read more