Ingenuity, the helicopter that NASA sent to Mars, turned its propellers for the first time in a pre-flight test scheduled for Sunday night, the first on another planet from a motorized spacecraft.
“The helicopter is fine, it’s healthy,” Tim Canham, Ingenuity’s operations manager, said at a news conference on Friday.
“Last night (…) we spun the propellers very slowly and carefully,” he said.
The moment was captured by the rover Perseverance, located several meters away and in which the helicopter was transported since it landed on Mars on February 18, before separating from it over the weekend.
NASA released a short video clip of the spacecraft, looking similar to a large drone, with its propellers spinning.
The first flight will take place on Monday at 02:54 GMT (Sunday at 22:54 on the east coast of the United States), the US space agency announced.
The first data is expected to reach Earth on Monday around 08:15 GMT (04:15 on the east coast of the United States).
A live broadcast from NASA teams analyzing this first data will be visible on the space agency’s website.
The first flight will last 40 seconds in total, and the helicopter will take off vertically before remaining in the air.
“We’re going to take off, climb three feet high, turn in the direction of the rover, take a picture and then get back down,” Canham announced.
NASA is planning up to five flights, of increasing difficulty, over a period of one month.
A final propeller test is yet to be conducted this Friday, this time “at full speed,” said Mimi Aung, helicopter project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Rising in Martian air is a challenge, as it has a density equivalent to only 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Although the gravity is lower there than on Earth, NASA teams had to develop an ultralight machine (1.8 kg) and the propellers will rotate much faster than those of a standard helicopter.
What are the chances of success of this flight? “The only uncertainty remains around Mars,” including “the winds,” Mimi Aung said. It’s a “high-risk” experience, but with a “big reward” if successful, he summed up.