NASA is targeting no earlier than Monday, April 19, for the first flight of its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at approximately 3:30 a.m. EDT (12:30 a.m. PDT).

Data from the first flight will return to Earth a few hours following the autonomous flight. A livestream will begin at 6:15 a.m. EDT (3:15 a.m. PDT), as the helicopter team prepares to receive the data downlink in the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Watch on NASA Television, the agency app, website, and social media platforms, including YouTube and Facebook.

If the flight takes place April 19, a postflight briefing will be held at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT).

The participants are:

  • Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
  • Michael Watkins, JPL director
  • MiMi Aung, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL
  • Bob Balaram, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter chief engineer at JPL
  • Håvard Grip, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter chief pilot at JPL
  • Justin Maki, Perseverance Mars rover imaging scientist and deputy principal investigator of Mastcam-Z instrument at JPL

The public and media also may ask questions on social media during the livestream and briefing using #MarsHelicopter.

Find the latest schedule updates at: https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/#Watch-Online

The original flight date of April 11 shifted as engineers worked on preflight checks and a solution to a command sequence issue. The Perseverance rover will provide support during flight operations, taking images, collecting environmental data, and hosting the base station that enables the helicopter to communicate with mission controllers on Earth.

This technology demonstration is supported by NASA’s Science, Aeronautics Research, and Space Technology mission directorates. JPL, managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations for Ingenuity and the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.

Follow Ingenuity via the @NASA, @NASAJPL, and @NASAMars Twitter accounts; NASA and NASAPersevere Facebook accounts; and NASA Instagram account.

Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s blades are made of a lightweight carbon fiber foam core to provide lift in the thin Mars atmosphere. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
  • When NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter attempts its first test flight on the Red Planet, the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will be close by, as seen in this artist’s concept. Ingenuity, a technology experiment, will be the first aircraft to attempt controlled flight on another planet. When it attempts its test flights on Mars in spring 2021, Ingenuity will remain within a 0.6-mile (1-kilometer) radius of Perseverance so it can communicate wirelessly with the rover. Perseverance then communicates with relay orbiters around Mars that send the signal back to Earth. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory built and will manage operations of Perseverance and Ingenuity for the agency. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
  • This illustration shows NASA astronauts working on the surface of Mars. A helicopter similar to the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is airborne at left. Ingenuity is being carried aboard the Perseverance rover; it will be deployed to the Martian surface in the weeks after landing to test whether future helicopters could accompany robotic and human missions. Credit: NASA.