Washington, United States:
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter could make its initial flight more than the Red Planet as quickly as Monday, the US space agency reported, following a delay of more than a week due to a achievable technical situation.
The mini-helicopter’s trip will mark the initial-ever powered, controlled flight on a different planet, and will enable NASA reap invaluable information about the situations on Mars.
“NASA is targeting no earlier than Monday, April 19, for the first flight of its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter,” the space agency reported Saturday.
Data will return to Earth “a few hours following the autonomous flight,” which would take off at about 3:30 am (0730 GMT), NASA mentioned.
Ingenuity’s initial trip was initially set for last Sunday, but was delayed soon after a prospective situation emerged throughout a higher-speed test of the 4-pound (1.8 kilogram) helicopter’s rotors.
NASA calls the unprecedented helicopter operation very risky: The flight is a challenge due to the fact the air on Mars is so thin — much less than one % of the stress of Earth’s atmosphere.
The helicopter arrived on Mars attached to the underside of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on February 18.
After the helicopter’s flight, Ingenuity will send Perseverance technical information on what it has completed, and that data will be transmitted back to Earth.
The helicopter mission is be the equivalent on Mars of the initial powered flight on Earth — by the Wright brothers in 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. A piece of fabric from that plane has been tucked inside Ingenuity in honor of that feat.