BBC Science Focus Magazine
Roughly 274,000,000km away, a hitchhiker is about to make extraterrestrial history. NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is set to take flight on the Red Planet, the first time a flying vehicle has taken to the skies of another planet.
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Ingenuity piggybacked to Mars on the Perseverance rover, which successfully landed in February. After deploying from the rover, it’s now waiting to stretch its long but lightweight wings and take a look around.
If it succeeds, Ingenuity will truly live up to its name. This is ambitious, experimental technology that has to clear a mind-boggling series of obstacles if it’s to rise from the rust-coloured dust of the Jezero Crater. No wonder observers are comparing it to the Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903.