A four-pound helicopter is preparing to take the first-ever flight on Mars but first, it has to survive the cold Martian night using its tiny solar panels.
The helicopter, nicknamed Ingenuity, arrived on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, hitching along for the ride with NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover.
Currently, the little chopper is embedded in the belly of the rover awaiting deployment onto the Martian surface. NASA engineers have been searching for just the right spot in Jezero Crater on Mars to plop the helicopter down and let it fly. “For the past few sols now on Mars, we’ve been looking for a place to drop it off, right,” Mars 2020 systems engineer Farah Alibay said. “We are looking for a flat environment where we can leave the helicopter