NASA Mars helicopter fully deployed under the rover and ready to land

NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance is slowly but surely preparing to deploy the first helicopter drone on Mars in parallel with the survey of the surrounding rocks of the Red Planet. This month, the protective cover was dropped, then the location of the flight zone was chosen, and now the Ingenuity craft is fully deployed and ready to land.

“We are at the finish line. The Martian helicopter has lowered all four legs and is ready to land on the surface of Mars. When he is ready, “Perseverance” lower it gently to the surface, “– wrote in the” Twitter ” specialists Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA (JPL), accompanied by the words photography, where the drone is suspended at a distance of a few centimeters from the ground.

Earlier, JPL published a GIF-animation in the same place, which captures the process of deploying the device, designed to become a technological demonstration of the possibility of flying in the atmosphere of Mars. Let’s remind: until now, not a single propeller-driven vehicle has ever flown outside the Earth. If all goes well, Ingenuity will pave the way for other drones to help explore the Red Planet, both in uncrewed missions and astronaut expeditions.

The first test flight of the Inventiveness helicopter will take place no earlier than April 8th. The flight area is shaped like a small racing track. Even just a successful takeoff, the entire mission will already be considered a success. During the first launch, the helicopter will rise to a height of about three meters, hover above the surface for 30 seconds, make a revolution around its axis in place, and then land. The whole process will take place automatically according to a program that NASA engineers will send to the helicopter’s onboard computer the day before the flight. The 0.5-megapixel camera on the belly of Ingenuity will take 30 photos per second (that is, it will record a video) during the entire process.