In this artist’s concept, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter stands on the Red Planet’s surface as NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (partially visible on the left) rolls away.
Ingenuity, a technology experiment, will be the first aircraft to attempt controlled flight on another planet. It will arrive on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover. Perseverance will deploy Ingenuity onto the surface of Mars, and Ingenuity is expected to attempt its first flight test in spring 2021.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory built and will manage operations of Perseverance and Ingenuity for the agency. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.
For more information about Ingenuity, go to https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter.
For more information about the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission, go to https://mars.nasa.gov/perseverance.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech