The Wright Flyer Makes It to Space—in Pieces

A small swatch of muslin from the lower-left wing of the Wright Flyer was placed on the underside of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity’s solar panel (the dark rectangle) prior to its launch with the Perseverance rover. [Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech]

Although the Wright brothers never made it off the beach in North Carolina with their Wright Flyer, parts of the first and famous powered aircraft have been to space, carried aboard spacecraft.

In 1969 pieces of the Wright Flyer’s wood and fabric went to the moon. They were carried by astronaut Neil Armstrong aboard Apollo 11. The relics were flown to the surface in the lunar module Eagle, so when the Eagle landed, so did the Wrights.

READ MORE: Celebrating 120 Years of Aviation

On January 28, 1986, a note penned by Orville Wright along with pieces of wood and fabric from the 1903 Flyer were aboard the space shuttle Challenger flight STS-51-L. Sadly, the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts.

On July 30, 2020, a piece of fabric from the Wright Flyer was carried into space as part of the Ingenuity, a remotely controlled helicopter that rode to Mars attached to the Perseverance rover. The spacecraft landed on Mars on February 18, 2021. At first, Ingenuity was slated for five flights on the Red Planet, but according to mars.nasa.gov, the solar-powered autonomous aircraft has completed 67 flights.

READ MORE: NASA’s Ingenuity Completes First Flight on Mars

NASA officials noted the first aircraft to achieve powered controlled flight on another planet is a "Wright brothers moment."

120 years Apollo 11 Aviation History Challenger Neil Armstrong Space space shuttle Wright Brothers Wright Flyer

Meg GodlewskiAuthor

Meg Godlewski has been an aviation journalist for more than 24 years and a CFI for more than 20 years. If she is not flying or teaching aviation, she is writing about it. Meg is a founding member of the Pilot Proficiency Center at EAA AirVenture and excels at the application of simulation technology to flatten the learning curve. Follow Meg on Twitter @2Lewski.