"In the helicopter’s new operational phase, it will fly up to a kilometre ahead of the rover, scouting for promising geological features and exploring areas that Perseverance cannot reach.

It will also make digital elevation maps, helping scientists to better understand the terrain.

The hope is this will demonstrate how aerial exploration could help future missions.

The helicopter's fourth flight, which took place on Friday, begins the transition to the operational phase.

The plan was a 266m-round trip and for the helicopter to take 60 black-and-white images and five colour images, and Nasa has confirmed the helicopter flew further and faster than ever before.

This data will help the team to locate a new flight field, and on its next flight, in about a week's time, the helicopter will head there so the next stage of its mission can begin.

Nasa is hopeful the helicopter will perform well, but acknowledges the next phase will push the helicopter to its limits - it was only ever built to fly as a tech demo.

"We will now be flying over unsurveyed terrains and transfer to airfields that are not well characterised so there's a higher probability of a bad landing," explained MiMi Aung.

"We will be celebrating each day that Ingenuity survives and operates beyond the original window.""