NASA is on the verge of making the first trip to another planet soon. Ingenuity, the space agency's tiny helicopter, "will set a flight date [no later than April 14]."
Ingenuity's first flight of Ingenuity was supposed to occur on April 11. Still, the helicopter hit a snag during a pre-flight test. Ingenuity's onboard computer terminated the test early while attempting to spin the helicopter's rotors at maximum speed without leaving the ground.
NASA said the helicopter is secure and in contact with Earth. In a status report, the space agency said the team expects to update the helicopter's software.
Ingenuity landed on Mars in a flat area and is undergoing final testing before lifting into the thin Martian air.
In this concept illustration provided by NASA, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter stands on the Red Planet's surface as NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (partially visible on the left) rolls away.
Is it Challenging to Fly on Mars?
Flying on Mars is extremely difficult because of the planet's wispy atmosphere, National Geographic said. The Red Planet has an altitude of around 100,000 feet on Earth. It's much higher than even the most efficient helicopters would fly.
In 1972, French aviator Jean Boulet soared to a height of 40,820 feet at an airbase northwest of Marseille, setting a new record for helicopter flight altitude.
Ingenuity can climb to a height of around 10 feet, hover and turn slightly, then return to the ground.
MiMi Aung, the Ingenuity project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the trip would last only 30 seconds. Still, if it is good, it will open up new possibilities for exploring other worlds.
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"JPL, right? We dare mighty things," says Aung, referring to the NASA lab's official motto.
NASA hopes that the 19-inch-tall helicopter will pave the way for larger rotorcraft on Mars, giving scientists a new perspective on the red planet.
Landers and rovers on the surface offer an up-close look at the minerals and rock layers containing clues about the planet's origin. The spacecraft orbiting Mars provides a global sense of the planet's structure geologic features.
Matt Shindell, a curator of planetary science and discovery at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum (NASM), said helicopters on Mars would be able to study whole craters, canyons, and mountains in far greater detail than orbiters. They could even get to places where a rover couldn't, like canyon walls or volcanic slopes.
"What a helicopter would potentially do is bridge the difference between that orbital perspective and the ground perspective, to where we could now get a little bit more of a sense of Mars regionally," Shindell says.
NASA's acting president Steve Jurczyk adds that a potential flying machine might be used as a "scout for rover missions, to overlook a horizon to plan out where to travel.
How to Watch Ingenuity's First Flight
While it won't be the same as watching a sporting event on live television, the NASA team hopes to receive results showing a satisfactory hover process.
NASA TV will broadcast live coverage of the announcement of Ingenuity's first flight.
Along for the journey is a good-luck talisman. A small piece of the famous Wright Brothers Flyer is attached to Ingenuity, drawing a direct line between the making of aviation history on Earth and Mars.
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