It’s one giant leap for drone-kind.
The helicopter drone set to make humankind’s first flight on another planet has touched down on Mars, NASA said.
Photos show the four-legged contraption parked on the red planet’s surface — after hitching a ride there on NASA’s Perseverance rover — before it takes off on or around April 1 for the first of as many as five 90-second flights, the Verge reported.
The extra-light drone — named Ingenuity — will spend the days before its maiden voyage collecting energy from the sun to maintain operation during frigid Mars nights, NASA said in a statement last month.
When the chopper is ready to deploy, NASA’s team in California will take about six Mars days — just four Earth hours — to deploy the drone to elevate at a rate of three feet per second.
The drone takes eight hours to communicate its actions with its Earth-bound architects.
The craft will be able to hover about 10 feet aboveground for 30 seconds, NASA said.
If successful, the Ingenuity with be the first human-powered flight on a planet other than Earth.
The Ingenuity Helicopter after it was detached from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on April 4, 2021. EPA/NASA/JPL-Caltech HANDOUTNASA officials hope the technology will allow future researchers and space explorers a better view of the planet’s geography.
Temperatures on the planet can drop as low as -130° Fahrenheit, according to project chief engineer Bob Balaram. The extra-thin ground-level atmosphere makes flying especially difficult.






