We’ve been exited about NASA flying a helicopter on Mars since before Perseverance, its newest rover, left Earth. And now we’re finally in the home stretch, as the Ingenuity helicopter, which is stored underneath the rover itself, has finally been revealed.
By which we mean that the debris shield covering NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has been discarded and the helicopter itself is now visible (in the header image above). It’s a tiny little thing, but there’s not much atmosphere for it to play in. You’re not going to get a Bell UH-1 off the ground on Mars, after all. Might as well send something lighter.
Perseverance paying off
Away goes the debris shield, and here’s our first look at the helicopter. It’s stowed sideways, folded up and locked in place, so there’s some reverse origami to do before I can set it down. First though, I’ll be off to the designated “helipad,” a couple days’ drive from here. pic.twitter.com/E9zZGQk5jQ
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) March 21, 2021
NASA has identified the place where its Ingenuity helicopter will take its first flight — which is also the first directed-from-earth flight of any helicopter ever. All that remains is for the rover to get there and for some “reverse origami” to take place and set the little critter up. This will go down, at the soonest, in the first week of April this year, but it’s possible that the flight will be delayed to later in the month.
Once it’s up and running (assuming it flies), the craft will undertake five flights in 30 days. There are two cameras on-board, one of which is a 13MP colour sensor that will send images back to Earth while in flight. It’s not quite as easy as live-streaming from a DJI drone, unfortunately. The other camera is a black-and-white 0.5MP sensor used for navigation. Ingenuity is a marvel of engineering, costing $85 million to create and designed to last the trip from Earth to Mars, survive Perseverance’s landing and then fly around a little and take some photos.
NASA will be holding a media briefing to discuss their upcoming plans for getting the rover’s Ingenuity helicopter up and in the air in the coming weeks tomorrow evening. The briefing takes place on 23 March, at 19:30 SAST. NASA will also be taking questions from interested parties on social media, provided you’re a) asking serious questions, and b) using the #MarsHelicopter hashtag.
