NASA is turning over Ingenuity drone on Mars. It’s almost ready, but the historic flight has been delayed

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NASA is getting ready for the first flight Ingenuity has been around for a long time. As a reminder, it is an autonomous drone that arrived on Mars together with the Perseverance rover. It is to be the first device to take off in the air on the Red Planet and it will do it as part of an experiment (NASA wants to see how many flights using lift are possible there).

NASA has done “reverse origami” and is delaying take-off

A few days ago, we reported that NASA had ordered the removal of the Ingenuity drone cover, and we were able to see it in the picture for the first time. Perseverance (the helicopter is attached to the rover’s chassis) has already left the cover behind him, and Ingenuity has made the so-called “reverse origami”.

This is what NASA engineers call the process of turning the helicopter over and disassembling all its elements. Theoretically, it is almost ready to fly, but it is still attached to the rover’s chassis. The last step is to unhook it and plant it on the Martian regolith.

Step by step, Ingenuity prepares to descend to the surface. Once everything is laid out, I can cut it off

– we read on NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Twitter channel, which is run in the first person.

Initially, NASA planned that the first lot Ingenuity will take place “no earlier than April 8. This week, however, it has been announced that the launch will be slightly delayed. Current estimates put the maiden flight date on or after April 11.

In the second half of March, NASA found the perfect location for Ingenuity’s first flight. This is a flat area just north of the Perseverance landing site, which is supposed to be the first-ever extraterrestrial landing site for such an aircraft. For when Ingenuity takes off, it will be the first device to use lift to fly beyond Earth.

As NASA engineers emphasize, flights using lift on Mars are definitely more difficult than on Earth. All because of the very rarefied atmosphere (the pressure on Mars is about 100 times lower than on Earth), which makes it difficult to obtain sufficient force to keep even such a small device in the air as Ingenuity. We explained this in more detail a few months ago in the text below:

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