NASA is about to fly its Mars helicopter for the first time – an achievement that could revolutionize spaceflight.
The helicopter, called Ingenuity, traveled nearly 300 million miles to the red planet that was stopped in the belly of the Perseverance Rover. Now he is sitting at an airport in Mars’ Jezero crater, where he will take the first controlled flight on another planet.
The ingenuity will run the flight autonomously early Monday, and NASA expects to receive data from the helicopter around 6:15 p.m. This is when the agency will know if the test flight was successful.
Perseverance took a selfie with Ingenuity on April 6th.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / Seán Doran
You can see what happened to the helicopter as NASA learns it via a live stream of mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California (embedded below). On the live feed, mission controllers can even receive the first photos of the helicopter.
In the first flight from Ingenuity, it is expected to rise about 10 feet from the ground, float there and then touch gently again. The helicopter must perform the entire flight autonomously. If all goes well, Ingenuity will try four more escapades in the course of 30 days. Each of those flights would be increasingly difficult, and the drone would venture higher and further each time.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
Because it takes at least eight minutes for a signal from Mars to travel to Earth, and vice versa, the engineers and technicians who run Ingenuity can only bite nails and wait for the signal that the helicopter has flown and landed.
“I’m sure we’re all going to be pretty on point,” Josh Ravich, the mechanical leader for the Ingenuity team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Insider. “Definitely nervous. I mean, it’s after years and years of work, you know, to wait for that moment to come back.”
Watch NASA fly its Mars helicopter directly
Ingenuity is a demonstration designed to test NASA’s rotorcraft technology on another planet. Other than flying and taking photos and videos from the air, it will do no science. But ingenuity can pave the way for future alien helicopters that will explore for robbers and astronauts, study the surface of Mars or other planets from the air and fly through gorges and cliffs that are inaccessible to robbers.
The NASA TV live stream below, will air Monday at 6:15 p.m. ET launches and shows the agency’s space flight operating facility as it receives data and possibly images from Ingenuity’s flight. This is where engineers like Ravich will anxiously wait to hear from the helicopter.
“By its nature, it’s going to be a little more risky than a normal mission,” Ravich said. “There are many things that can go wrong.”
Ingenuity had already tried to fly three hours earlier at 03:30 ET. You will not be able to see the flight in real time – NASA can not stream from another planet – but video of and from the flight will probably be available soon. The helicopter will pick up the ground below using two cameras on its belly (one in black and white for navigation and one in color). The persistence, meanwhile, is expected to pick up the flight from a nearby view.
It is not yet known how long it will take to get the video back on Earth and for NASA to publish it. Perseverance returned full video footage of his landing within three days.
A “Selfie” from Perseverance shows cameras on the remote sensing mast at the end of the robot’s arm.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
Monday’s test flight was originally scheduled for April 12, but NASA delayed it after a major spin test ended abruptly. The test involved the helicopter’s carbon fiber blades rotating at full speed while on the ground. The two pairs of blades must rotate in opposite directions at about 2,500 rpm – about eight times as fast as a passenger helicopter on earth – to lift the 4-pound drone. This is necessary because Mars’ sky has only 1% the density of the Earth’s atmosphere.
But the spin test ended when the helicopter could not switch the flight computer from the “pre-flight” to “flight”. Engineers’ engineers have since solved the problem by customizing the helicopter’s flight control software. Vernuity did its full speed test again on Friday and the blades performed as they should have during flight.
This could be the first of five flights
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter, taken off on April 4 by the Perseverance Rover on Mars.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
If all goes as NASA hopes, Ingenuity’s fifth and final flight will carry the helicopter more than 300 meters of Martian soil.
“Each of them is likely to be a fairly tense and exciting experience,” Ravich said.
But even if Ingenuity only completes the first 10-foot glide, it will be a huge achievement.
“It will really be a moment of Wright brothers, but on a different planet,” MiMi Aung, the project manager of the helicopter team, said in a briefing before the rover landed. “Every step forward will be first of its kind.”
This post has been updated with new information. It was originally published on Friday, April 9, 2021.