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NASA is expected to reveal new details on the first flight of its Helicopter ingenuity on Mars today (March 23) and you can watch it live.
Ingenuity is hidden in the belly of NASA Perseverance rover, which landed inside the Jezero de Mars crater on February 18. The agency will provide an update on the helicopter’s flight plan, including the location of its first test flights, during a virtual media briefing at 1:30 p.m. EDT (5:30 p.m. GMT). You can Watch a live broadcast of the event here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency.
“Ingenuity test flights are scheduled to start no earlier than the first week of April,” NASA officials said said in a press release. “The exact timing of the first flight will remain fluid as engineers work out details on the timing of deployments and positioning of the Perseverance and Ingenuity vehicles.”
Related: NASA’s Martian helicopter ingenuity explained
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The press conference will be moderated by members operating Ingenuity and NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The teams have chosen Ingenuity’s flight zone, where the robotic helicopter will perform its first test flights – the very first attempt at powered and controlled flights to another planet.
Ingenuity took a big step forward in preparation for its historic test flights last weekend, when Perseverance dropped the protective shell who protected the helicopter during its heart-wrenching landing on Mars last month. The debris shield was removed on Sunday, March 21, when Ingenuity was first exposed to the atmosphere of the Red Planet.
Now, Perseverance is en route to Ingenuity’s designated flight zone, where the rover will lower the helicopter safely to the Martian surface. Then the rover rolls back to give the 4 pounds. (1.8 kilograms) of cutting room to unlock its four rotor blades and carry out a few spin tests.
Ingenuity has a limited experimentation window of 31 days (30 days on Mars, or soils), during which NASA teams will attempt up to five test flights. The helicopter will depart from an aerodrome 33 feet by 33 feet (10 meters by 10) and return before landing. It will fly at altitudes of 10 to 15 feet (3-5 meters) and travel up to 160 feet (50 meters) from its starting point. Each flight will not last more than approximately 90 seconds, according to the mission plan.
Meanwhile, Perseverance is designed to deploy the helicopter and provide environmental monitoring and imagery support. The rover also houses the Ingenuity base station, which allows mission controllers on Earth to communicate with the spacecraft. However, after Ingenuity’s 30-day experimentation window, the rover will focus on its primary goal of exploring Jezero Crater and caching samples be sent back to Earth by a future mission.
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