Ingenuity, a technology experiment, is preparing to attempt the first powered, controlled flight on the Red Planet.

When NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars on Feb.

18, 2021, it will be carrying a small but mighty passenger: Ingenuity, the Mars Helicopter.

Now that they’ve checked off those objectives, the team is preparing to test Ingenuity in the actual environment of Mars.

“Our Mars Helicopter team has been doing things that have never been done before – that no one at the outset could be sure could even be done,” said MiMi Aung, the Ingenuity project manager at JPL “We faced many challenges along the way that could have stopped us in our tracks.

But the helicopter won’t attempt its first flight for more than a month after landing: Engineers for the rover and helicopter need time to make sure both robots are ready.

Ingenuity is an experimental flight test.

The Mars Helicopter is what is known as a technology demonstration – a narrowly focused project that seeks to test a new capability for the first time.

NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will make history's first attempt at powered flight on another planet in February.

It is riding with the agency's next mission to Mars (the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover).

Perseverance, with Ingenuity attached to its belly, will land on Mars February 18, 2021.

Mars won’t make it easy for Ingenuity to attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.

Because the Mars atmosphere is so thin, Ingenuity is designed to be light, with rotor blades that are much larger and spin much faster than what would be required for a helicopter of Ingenuity’s mass on Earth.

The Red Planet also has beyond bone-chilling temperatures, with nights as cold as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius) at Jezero Crater, the rover and helicopter’s landing site.

Tests on Earth at the predicted temperatures indicate Ingenuity’s parts should work as designed, but the team is looking forward to the real test on Mars.

Ingenuity relies on the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission for safe passage to Mars and for operations on the Red Planet’s surface.

Ingenuity is nestled sideways under the belly of the Perseverance rover with a cover to protect it from debris kicked up during landing.

Both the rover and the helicopter are safely ensconced inside a clamshell-like spacecraft entry capsule during the 293-million-mile (471-million-kilometer) journey to Mars.

To reach the Martian surface, Ingenuity rides along with Perseverance as it lands.

Once a suitable site to deploy the helicopter is found, the rover’s Mars Helicopter Delivery System will shed the landing cover, rotate the helicopter to a legs-down configuration, and gently drop Ingenuity on the surface in the first few months after landing.

Throughout the helicopter’s commissioning and flight test campaign, the rover will assist with the communications back-and-forth from Earth.

The rover team also plans to collect images of Ingenuity.

Delays are an inherent part of communicating with spacecraft across interplanetary distances, which means Ingenuity’s flight controllers at JPL won’t be able to control the helicopter with a joystick.

Given Ingenuity’s experimental nature, the team has a long list of milestones the helicopter must reach before it can take off and land in the spring of 2021.

If the first experimental flight test on another planet succeeds, the Ingenuity team will attempt more test flights.

NASA’s Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity, is set to arrive at the Red Planet on Feb.

If successful, these technologies and the experience with flying a helicopter on another planet could enable other advanced robotic flying vehicles that might be part of future robotic and human missions to Mars.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter technology demonstration for NASA.

JPL also manages the Mars 2020 Perseverance project for NASA.

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