Nasa’s Mars helicopter is about to launch the first ever controlled flight on another planet, as Ingenuity lifts off for a short hover over the surface.
The space agency hopes to plan the helicopter, which weighs less than 2kg, up to an altitude of 10 feet above the surface. It will wait there for 30 seconds, before attempting to land safely on the surface.
Engineers will not be able to control as it goes: the distance between Earth and Mars means that Ingenuity will be on its own, conducting pre-programmed instructions.
“The moment our team has been waiting for is almost here,” Ingenuity project manager MiMi Aung said at a recent briefing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles.
