Mars Helicopter’s First Flight: When To Watch It Live

ACROSS AMERICA — A historic flight will happen a world away as NASA will make its first attempt at flying its Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.

The flight is scheduled for no earlier than Wednesday and, if successful, would mark the first-ever powered, controlled flight to occur on another planet. To mark the occasion, the agency is inviting people around the globe to watch Ingenuity take flight with a livestream event.

The livestream will be shown on NASA Television as well as on the agency's phone app and website. It will also be available on Facebook and YouTube pages belonging to the Jet Propulsion Lab, which manufactured the helicopter.

Ingenuity's relevance is being compared to the Wright brothers' first controlled flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.

“I call it the ‘Wright brothers moment of Mars,’” Dev Singh, a general manager of robotics, drones and intelligent machines at Qualcomm, told NBC San Diego. “On Earth, it was about 115 years ago that first flight took off, and now it’s changed the pace of how we travel on Earth. This is exactly what it is going to do.”

Qualcomm helped design some of the technology used in the helicopter, according to the news station.

The helicopter arrived to red planet on Feb. 18 as an attachment to the Perseverance rover, accord to a NASA statement. Ingenuity is a technology demonstration, showing the feasibility of being able to fly on Mars.

“The 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,” the agency said.

In preparation for the flight, NASA has begun testing the helicopter’s rotors, ordering the blades to spin while it remains on the ground.

NASA had to reschedule plans for Ingenuity to take flight on Monday after a test of its rotors triggered a “watchdog timer expiration,” the agency said in a statement.

“The watchdog timer oversees the command sequence and alerts the system to any potential issues,” NASA said. “It helps the system stay safe by not proceeding if an issue is observed and worked as planned.”

For its first flight, NASA said the helicopter will only hover a few feet off the ground for a half-minute before landing. Additional flights will involve Ingenuity flying farther and higher on Mars.

The flights are expects to occurred over the course of a month.