Your random space fact for this week is that Ingenuity — you know, the space helicopter — carried a small piece of aviation history to Mars. Taped to a cable below its solar panel is a postage-stamp-sized piece of muslin fabric from the very first plane to make a successful powered heavier than air flight: the Wright Brothers’ 1903 flyer.  Two other fragments of the 1903 Flyer went to space.  Neil Armstrong carried a piece on Apollo 11 and John Glenn took a different piece with him on STS-95. Ingenuity will make its flight soon, and we’ll have coverage of that here on CosmoQuest after it occurs.

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Part of Wright brothers’ 1st airplane on NASA’s Mars chopper (AP)

Carillon Historical Park has partnered with NASA to help make history on the surface of Mars (Dayton History)