How NASA tries to fly a Mars helicopter for the first time

NASA is about to fly its Mars helicopter for the first time – a feat that could revolutionize space flight.

The helicopter, called Ingenuity, traveled nearly 300 million miles to the red planet hidden in the Perseverance rover’s belly. Now it sits in an airport in Mars’ Jezero Crater, where it will make the first controlled powered flight ever performed on another planet.

Ingenuity will autonomously conduct that flight early Monday, and NASA expects to receive data from the helicopter around 6:15 a.m. ET. Then the agency will know whether the test flight has been successful.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / Sean Doran

You can see what happened to the helicopter as NASA learns it via a live stream from Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California (embedded below). On the live feed, mission controllers can even receive the helicopter’s first flight photos.

In Ingenuity’s first flight, it is expected to rise about 3 meters above the ground, float there, and then gently hit back down. The helicopter must carry out the entire flight autonomously. If all goes well, Ingenuity will then attempt to make four more airborne flights over the course of 30 days. Each of those flights would get more and more difficult, with the drone going higher and farther each time.

NASA / JPL-Caltech

Since it takes at least eight minutes for a signal to travel from Mars to Earth, and vice versa, Ingenuity’s engineers and technicians can do nothing but bite their nails and wait for the signal that the helicopter has flown and landed.

“I’m sure we’re all going to be pretty tense,” Josh Ravich, the mechanical leader of the Ingenuity team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Insider. ‘Absolutely nervous. I mean, it’s after years and years of work, you know, kind of waiting for that little moment to come back. ”

Watch NASA fly its Mars helicopter live

Ingenuity is a demonstration intended to test the technology of NASA’s helicopters on another planet. So other than flying and taking photos and videos from the sky, it won’t do any science. But ingenuity could pave the way for future alien helicopters that would explore for rovers and astronauts, study the surface of Mars or other planets from the sky, and fly through canyons and cliffs that may not be accessible to rovers.

The NASA TV livestream, below, starts Monday at 6:15 a.m.ET and shows the agency’s Space Flight Operations Facility as it receives data and possibly images from Ingenuity’s flight. That’s where engineers like Ravich anxiously wait to hear from the helicopter.

“It naturally carries a little more risk than a normal mission,” Ravich said. “Many things can go wrong.”

Ingenuity will have already tried to fly about three hours earlier, at 3:30 a.m. ET. You can’t watch the flight in real time – NASA can’t live stream from another planet – but video from and of the flight will likely become available shortly after. The helicopter is set to record the ground beneath it using two cameras mounted on its belly (one in black and white for navigation and one in color). Meanwhile, persistence is expected to record the flight from a nearby vantage point.

It is not yet known how long it will take to get that video back to Earth and for NASA to publish it. Perseverance beamed back complete video footage of the landing within three days.

NASA / JPL-Caltech

Monday’s test flight was originally scheduled for April 12, but NASA postponed it after a pivotal spin test ended abruptly. That test involved spinning the helicopter’s carbon fiber blades at full speed while on the ground. The two pairs of blades must spin in opposite directions at about 2,500 revolutions per minute – about eight times faster than a passenger helicopter on Earth – to lift the 4-pound drone. This is necessary because Martian air has only 1% the density of the Earth’s atmosphere.

But the spin test ended when the helicopter failed to switch its flight computer from “pre-flight” to “flight” mode. Ingenuity’s engineers have since solved the problem by modifying the helicopter’s flight control software. Ingenuity rerun its full spin test on Friday and the blades performed as they should in flight.

This could be the first of 5 flights

NASA / JPL-Caltech

If all goes as NASA hopes, Ingenuity’s fifth and final flight will transport the helicopter more than 300 meters from Mars ground.

“Any of those things will probably turn into a pretty tense and exciting experience,” Ravich said.

But even if Ingenuity only completes this first 3-meter gliding flight, that will be a major achievement.

“It really will be a moment of the Wright brothers, but on a different planet,” said MiMi Aung, the helicopter team’s project manager, in a briefing before the rover landed. “Every step forward is the first of its kind.”

This post has been updated with new information. It was originally published on Friday, April 9, 2021.