NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is set to make a giant leap for robotkind — if all goes according to plan, it will be the first powered, guided aircraft ever to fly on another world.
The Mars Helicopter team poses for a photo with a model of Ingenuity outside its home at JPL.
Ingenuity and Perseverance finish a weeks-long test under Mars-like conditions in a vacuum chamber at JPL. During the test, Ingenuity stretched its wings (and motors) just as it would be deployed on Mars.
Ingenuity is fitted with a small swatch of cloth from the wing of the Wright Brothers’ first airplane. The material came from the Wright Brothers National Museum in Dayton, Ohio.
Perseverance and Ingenuity launch toward Mars aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
Perseverance and Ingenuity land safely on Mars after their 293-million-mile, 203-day journey from Earth.
Ingenuity gets a closeup, captured by Perseverance’s zoomable Mastcam-Z cameras.
Ingenuity stretches its legs before being dropped from Perseverance onto the surface of Mars.
Ingenuity takes its first color photo of the Martian surface from underneath the Perseverance rover.
Ingenuity sits on its own on the Martian surface after being deployed.
Perseverance snaps a parting selfie with Ingenuity (composed of 62 individual shots stitched together) ahead of the helicopter’s historic flight this weekend.
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