Ingeniousness, the helicopter that NASA sent to Mars, turned its propellers for the first time into a test prior to its scheduled flight Sunday night, the first on another planet by a motorized spacecraft.
“The helicopter is fine, it’s healthy,” Tim Canham, Ingenuity’s operations manager, told a news conference Friday.
“Last night … I turned the propellers very slowly and carefully,” he said.
The moment was captured by the Perseverance rover, located a few meters away and in which the helicopter was transported since it landed on Mars on February 18, before separating from it last weekend.
NASA has released a short video of the spacecraft, similar to the appearance of a large drone, with its propellers rotating.
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 American space agency announced.
The first data is expected to arrive on Earth on Monday around 08:15 GMT (04:15 on the east coast of the United States).
A live stream of 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 climb vertically before remaining in the air.
“We’ll take off, climb up to ten feet, turn in the direction of the rover, take a picture, and then go back down,” Canham said.
NASA is planning up to five flights, with increasing difficulties, over a period of one month.
A final propeller test is yet to be completed this Friday, this time “at full speed,” said MiMi Aung, a helicopter project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Advancing in Martian air is a challenge because it has a density equivalent to only 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Although gravity is lower than on Earth, NASA teams had to develop an ultra-light 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 the environment on Mars,” including the “winds,” MiMi Aung said. It’s a “high-risk” experience, but with an “excellent payoff” if you’re successful, he summed up.