This article was last updated on 17 April.
The first helicopter is expected to embark on the first flight ever on Mars on Monday (April 19) and you can follow it all online. The flight has been delayed since April 11.
NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity flight cover begins to 06:15 EDT (1015 GMT) on Monday, with a press conference after flight at 14:00 EDT (1800 GMT). You can watch it live on Space.com and on this page, with permission from NASA TV, or directly from NASA Television, the NASA smartphone app, the agency’s website, and various social media platforms (such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s YouTube and Facebook channels.)
Ingenuity, which drove to the belly of the Perseverance Rover to Mars, is expected to take to the skies on Monday at 03:30 EDT (0730 GMT), but the data of the flight will only arrive on Earth a few hours later. . NASA’s 06:15 EDT Livestream will cover the arrival of the data with live views from Ingenuity’s control center at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Video: Watch NASA’s Mars helicopter ingenuity test its blades!
“The flight date may change as engineers work on the deployments, pre-flight checks and vehicle positioning of both perseverance and ingenuity,” NASA said in a statement, noting that the timing will be updated on the helicopter’s website if necessary.
“If the helicopter flies … as expected, the live stream will show how the helicopter team analyzes the first test flight data in JPL’s space flight industry,” the agency added. Mars is a few minutes lightning fast from Earth, and thus the ingenuity will autonomously take to the air and we will only know after that what it is.
JPL controllers are in the midst of an intensive three-month start with the ambitious Perseverance Mission, working on ‘Mars time’ to coordinate their internal clocks with the 24 hour, 37 minute ‘sol’ of each Mars day.
They have been in this mode since February 18, when perseverance on Mars came down to a long-term quest to find signs of ancient habitability and to put promising monsters in the closet for a planned future monster-return mission. Ingenuity is a test part of the mission and has up to 31 days (30 sols) of scheduled flights to test the idea of supporting ground missions by taking photos and collecting data from the air.
There will also be several live information sessions related to the flight; members of the public can ask questions on social media with the hashtag #MarsHelicopter.
The post-flight briefing on Monday at 14:00 EDT (1800 GMT) will include flight details of:
- Thomas Zurbuchen, Co-Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
- Michael Watkins, JPL Director
- MiMi Aung, Ingenuity Project Manager, JPL
- Bob Balaram, engineers Mars Helicopter chief engineer at JPL
- Håvard Grip, engineers Mars Helicopter Chief Pilot at JPL
- Justin Maki, perseverance scientist of the Mars rover and deputy principal investigator of the Mastcam-Z instrument at JPL
The exact timing of live streams can change, so keep an eye on social channels for updates.
In addition, NASA is planning two more informal talks called “Taking a Flight: How Girls Can Grow Up to Be Engineers” to “focus on helping girls draw a path to engineering and offering special opportunities for girls and women who interested in the field, “the agency stated.
The talks are scheduled for 16:00 EDT (2100 GMT) on 22 April and 29 April. But the agency said exact dates and times could be adjusted after Ingenuity’s first flight.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.