NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is getting ready to fly on Mars. This is what happens next – ABC News

A little less than 120 years after the first aircraft took to the sky above windswept fields near Kitty Hawk, a small helicopter is preparing to buzz around the surface of Mars.

In what's being billed as a Wright Brothers moment, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter will go down in history if it succeeds.

"We've never had an aircraft that can power itself off another planet," said Tim Canham, who leadsNASA's helicopter operations team.

The small table-sized helicopter arrived on Mars in February tucked up safely underneath the Perseverance rover, which charged the chopper's batteries and kept it warm.

Ingenuity has now reached its helipad and cameras onboard Perseverance have captured it slowly unfurling and hanging under the rover.

Supplied: NASA/JPL-Caltech

When the rover drops Ingenuityon the ground this week, the little helicopter'smission begins.

Not only must it survive the Martian nights where temperatures can drop to minus 100 degrees Celsius but it's on its own when it flies.

Supplied: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Its first flightcould take off aroundApril 8.

"We have 90 seconds of terror every single time we fly because once we send the command in the morning to say 'fly' we send then a whole heap of commands then hit go there's nothing we can do to change the outcome at that point," Mr Canham said.

Ingenuity might look like a mini-copter, but it could not fly on Earth.

Standing at just knee height and weighing a mere 1.8 kg, Ingenuity has been designed from scratch for the conditions on Mars.

At a cost of $80 million, the helicopter took three years to build using a combination of high-tech nous with components you can buy in a hobby shop.

Supplied: NASA/JPL-Caltech

One of the biggest sticking points the team had to overcome was the planet's thin atmosphere.

"If the mass of air is really thin, the helicopter has to work a lot harder to take off," Mr Canham said.

To counter this, the helicopter's 1.2-metre-long blades spin up to three times faster than they would need to on Earth.

Each blade is made out of stiff carbon fibre so they can grasp the air better, but they are so light they weigh the same as a piece of A4 paper.

"You can barely feel it because it's so thin but it's super strong," Mr Canham said.

And the legs are springy so they won't break if it bounces when it lands.

Many of the components, such as motors, have been miniaturised to stick to the weight limit.

At the heart of Ingenuity is a tiny computer designed to run its custom-made software and handle the avalanche of images and data captured by its cameras and sensors.

This computer is actually a processor you'd find in a three-year-old mobile phone. While already obsolete on Earth, it is surprisingly powerful.

"The processor on the helicopter is about 100 times more powerful than the processor on the rover itself," Mr Canham said.

The helicopter will buzz over a flat area not far from where Perseverance first landed.

Supplied: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Perseverance will observe Ingenuity from a spot about 60 metres away and relay data to and from the helicopter.

The helicopter is set to perform five flights in 31 (Earth) days.

In the days leading up to each flight, the team will do health checks to see that everything on the helicopter is working,and they'll monitor conditions such as air density and wind speed.

Once everything is OK, they'll send the "fly"commands up. Then it's up to Ingenuity.

Unlike drones on Earth, Ingenuity will have to fly itself, combining instructions about each flight with data from sensors and two onboard cameras which take 30 images per second to tell it where it's going and how fast it is travelling, as well as adjust for conditions such as wind gusts and other hazards.

Supplied: NASA/JPL-Caltech

On its first flight Ingenuity will rise about 3 metres, hover for about 30 seconds, then return back to its helipad.

"That will be very basic so we can get an idea of the dynamics of flying in the atmosphere and how much power we'd use," Mr Canham said.

"It's kind of a baby step."

On the second and third flights it will climb to a height of 5 metres and cover up to 15 metres travelling at 2 metres per second before returning to the helipad.

Once they see how those flights go, they'll work out what to do for the last two.

"If we just go bam, bam, bam, and do our first three flights and everything looks great then maybe we can do something more adventurous go further, go faster, go higher," Mr Canham said.

But first it needs to survive its first night on the ground.

Although Ingenuity has been tested on multiple occasions on Earth, there are two very stressfulpoints in the mission.

"The first scary touch point is that first drop," Mr Canham said.

After Ingenuity fully unfurls,Perseverance will drop it on the ground and drive away.

All going to plan, this will bethe first time we'll see what Ingenuity looks like on the Martian surface as Perseverance backs away and takes some snap shots.

But a lot can go wrong at this point. No longer connected to its life support, Ingenuity must get enough Sun on its solar panels to charge its batteries.

This must happen within 25 hours of dropping,said NASA systems engineer Farah Alibay, who is coordinating the two robots.

"If we dont drive off on time, if we have any problem, then theres a chance the helicopter might not survive the Martian night, she said.

The helicopter has a heater and thermostat designed to keep it warm as it sleeps through the cold Martian nights.But if this is also a bit off, the batteries will freeze.

"That first night we're going to find out whether or not our models were true about how warm it can keep itself because if we're wrong it can completely discharge the battery and the project might be over," Mr Canham said.

If it survives, the team will prepare it for its next hairy moment: the first flight.

Despite all the testing on Earth the team built a special space chamber to simulate conditions on Mars they're not really sure what the Red Planet will throw at them.

Once theysend the "fly"command up in the Martian morning, they then have to wait another four to five hours before the data starts streaming back to Earth via Perseverance in the afternoon.

"So it's going to fly when nobody is there to watch it except for the rover.

"We're pretty confident it's going to work. but you never know until you try it for the first time,MrCanham added.

"So we're going to be on the edge of our seats when that first flight data comes down."

Supplied: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Ingenuity's sensors will capture data such as height and speed as it tracks along its flight path. It will also takeimages withtwo cameras.

Perseverance will also try to capture images and video from its vantage point 60m away. That won't be easy, Dr Alibay said.

"Were going to be doing our very best to capture Ingenuity in flight," shesaid.

"Weve got to get that timing right to get that first flight, but were trying very, very hard to catch that."

NASA is planning to live stream the momentdata starts flowing into mission control.

"Depending on how much data can be transferred during the downlink after the flight, there is [also] a good chance we will see images of the helicopter from the rover on the day the flight occurs," Mr Canham said.

Scientists are on a quest to find out if another planet other than our own ever hosted life. Clues to what they might find are hidden in the ancient landscapes of Australia.

Over the next day or so we should get even more vision of the flight taken by both Perseverance and Ingenuity.

The area has already been extensively imaged by satellites and Perseverance, so the images won't contribute to the main mission;but they will give the team a bird's-eye view of the flight path.

"It's a good proof of concept, because it gives you anidea of how far it can see when it's above the ground ... and how well it can see.

"It's not science per se, they really are just snapshots like a selfie on Mars, but there is value for the future."

After Ingenuity finishes its five flights, its job is done.

"We are just trying to get there,fly around, get a lot of performance data and see what it's like to fly in the Martian atmosphere," Mr Canham said.

Because it isa proof of concept, it was not designed to last more than 31 (Earth) days on Mars.

As Perseverance moves on to its main mission, Ingenuity will be left alone in the Martian night. Its batteries will fail and it will fallsilent.

"Many of the parts we have in [the helicopter] are commercial off-the-shelf ones and theyaren't really designed to go through -100C nights all the time," Mr Canham said.

But the data that comes from those five flights will help scientistsin the future.

Ingenuity willpave the way for bigger and better drones, just as Sojourner the first rover to land on Mars in 1997 started the rover revolution.

"It really is that first step in enabling [development of] bigger, more capable drones," Mr Canham said.

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Dronehelicopters could transform exploration on the Red Planet.

Not only can they move much faster than rovers, they can get into hard-to-reach nooks and crannies that a rover can't.

Basic data from Ingenuity will give scientists more of an idea about what it takes to fly in Mars's atmosphere, and what tweaks they need to make to their systems.

But it will take a much hardier drone than Ingenuity to fully explore Mars.

"To have a helicopterthat would last a year or two,you'd need to invest more in the hardware, making it more rugged against temperature and radiation," Mr Canham said.

"You would also need a more advanced navigation system that can look ahead and detect hazards such as rocks.

"That's not in our algorithms because ... we weren't trying to prove that part of it, we're justtrying to prove we canfly."

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NASA's Ingenuity helicopter is getting ready to fly on Mars. This is what happens next - ABC News