NASA s Ingenuity helicopter set to take historic flight on Mars today abc.net.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from abc.net.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Early Monday morning, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter could become the first rotorcraft to soar through the skies on another planet.
NASA will begin streaming results from Ingenuity helicopter’s inaugural test flight starting at 6:15 a.m. EDT on April 19. Earlier this week, the Perseverance rover lowered the helicopter onto the Martian surface.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter could finally take to the Martian skies on Monday. If the test flight is successful, it will become the first ever rotorcraft to take flight on another world.
“The moment our team has been waiting for is almost here,” Ingenuity project manager Mimi Aung of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said during an April 9 pre-flight press conference. It’s a mission nearly a decade in the making, and one that could dramatically expand our ability to explore the solar system.
NASA schedules first Mars helicopter test flight for Monday – Spaceflight Now spaceflightnow.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from spaceflightnow.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
18 April 2021, 12:20 pm EDT By Mars Ingenuity helicopter ( Flickr/Kevin Gill )
NASA s highly-anticipated Mars helicopter flight is finally here. The team behind the project spent six years developing Ingenuity, the first aircraft to fly on the Red Planet.
Ingenuity s first flight
On Monday, Apr. 19, the ultra-lightweight robot will try taking off into Mars sky and if it succeeds, this maneuver will be the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.
According to The Verge, Ingenuity is scheduled to take off at 3:30 a.m. EDT or 7:30 GMT on Apr. 19, but its flight controllers are wary. If Ingenuity makes it off the Martian ground, NASA will broadcast a livestream of the first test flight data as it reaches Ingenuity s mission team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or JPL in California.
Watch NASA’s mission control track the first flight on Mars
Data from Ingenuity’s first flight attempt will reach NASA early Monday morning
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NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is slated to attempt the first-ever powered flight on another world at 3:30AM ET on Monday. The twin-blade rotorcraft will try to ascend 10 feet above ground and hover in place for 30 seconds while cameras on NASA’s Perseverance rover record the historic attempt from a distance.
The four-pound Ingenuity copter landed on Mars February 18th attached to the underbelly of Perseverance, NASA’s latest Mars rover whose main mission is to search for signs of ancient Martian life. Perseverance has set aside time to witness Ingenuity’s flight attempt and report the results back to Earth. Ingenuity’s Monday flight test is the first of five planned within a 31-day window that kicked off last week. If all goes well, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will start