NASA's Ingenuity marscopter all set to attempt first powered flight in Martian atmosphere

In a first, NASA's interplanetary helicopter 'Ingenuity' which flew to Mars tucked into the belly of the Perseverance rover, is set to take flight on April 11. Ingenuity is to date the first controlled and powered flight to traverse through another planet's atmosphere. Perseverance that landed on the red planet on February 18, has dropped a protective shield which helped Ingenuity to endure the perilous descent through the atmosphere of Mars.

'Once Ingenuity take flight, NASA to operate drones on Mars'

Taking the announcement to Twitter, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote:

Earlier, NASA had scheduled the take-off for April 8, but it was postponed to a few days later due to certain technical changes required.

The helicopter— Ingenuity is also responsible for the flights of drones that the NASA team aims to fly within 30 sols (about 31 Earth days). However, the helicopter will take some time to unfold and formally deploy for the flight while the activity will approximately take six sols or six Martian days, according to NASA's statement on the development.

Primary goal of Ingenuity is to understand flying mechanics on Mars

The team of Perseverance which is responsible for smooth operations of the helicopter had last month tweeted, "It [the helicopter] is 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 of days' drive from here."

Meanwhile, the primary goal of the 'Ingenuity marscopter' is to define the mechanics of flying on Mars. Basically, the developers of this helicopter that weighs around 1.8 kilograms aim to establish an understanding of how well technology can help them in flying a chopper in the atmosphere of the red planet. MiMi Aung, the Ingenuity project manager at NASA's JPL had hinted "After Perseverance has landed successfully on Mars, the next major milestone will be when [the] Perseverance rover delivers Ingenuity to the surface of Mars."