NASA's Mars helicopter crosses the 1.5-kilometer mark in its 10th flight over Red Planet.

The Martian helicopter Ingenuity of NASA has made its first mile on the red planet.

The small chopper surpassed the 1-mile (1.6 km) mark of its total flight distance on Saturday (July 24) when soared over a rocky region called "Raised Ridges" at its Jezero Crater home. The release was the 10th and highest voyage to date for Ingenuity, who arrived on Mars with NASA's Persévérance rover in February. The first robbery of Ingenuity took place in April.

"With the Mars Helicopter's flight success today, we crossed its 1-mile total distance flown to date," officials with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California wrote in an Instagram update late Saturday. JPL is the focal point of the mission of controlling perseverance and resourcefulness.

Flight 10 was the most challenging for Ingenuity, with 10 different waypoints the helicopter hit over its target ‘Raised Ridges'. It reached a maximum altitude of 40 feet (12 meters), a new record high, and flew approximately 310 feet (95 m). From take-off to landing, it took 165.4 seconds to complete. That's slightly less than three minutes.

During the flight, Ingenuity had to take a series of images, including those that could help scientists create stereo images of the Raised Ridges rocks. Scientists are planning to deploy the rover Persévérance.

"We will be imaged Raised Ridges because it's an area that Perseverance scientists find intriguing and are considering visiting sometime in the future," JPL mission managers in a July 23 status update.

Ingenuity is now stationed at its seventh aerodrome on the Mars mission. Scientists examine the telemetry and imagery of the flight.

Originally designed to carry out four flights to Mars, the Ingenuity helicopter is the first vehicle to attempt a motorized flight on another world. The 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) chopper arrived on Mars folded up in the belly of the Perseverance rover and was initially expected to fly only four flights over 30 Martian days (called sols) as a proof of concept.

The solar-powered helicopter completed its main assignment in April, and NASA expanded its operations. In this extended phase, ingenuity is being used for reconnaissance to find interesting places for the Perseverance rover.

"Air Scouting is helping the Mars Perseverance rover team decide the next steps," JPL officials wrote in Saturday's update.