Perseverance snapped this image of the Ingenuity helicopter on March 28 close to the beginning of the deployment process.

Perseverance snapped this image of the Ingenuity helicopter on March 28 close to the beginning of the deployment process.

NASA has plenty of experience operating wheeled rovers on Mars, but it’s never tried to fly a helicopter on the red planet before. The Ingenuity rotorcraft will get a chance to make history in April by flying the Martian skies, but first the Perseverance rover had to drop it off on the ground.

As of Saturday, Ingenuity is on its own. “Mars helicopter touchdown confirmed,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab tweeted along with a photo showing the helicopter a short distance away from the rover.

Ingenuity was perched under the belly of the Perseverance rover, and the process of deploying it took nearly a week. The rover’s cameras have given us visual benchmarks of the progress. The latest image of Ingenuity all alone highlights how small it is against the wide landscape.

After letting Ingenuity loose, the rover carefully rolled away to allow the helicopter’s solar panels to recharge its battery and keep it warm in the cold Martian conditions. “Next milestone? Survive the night,” NASA JPL tweeted.

“The Ingenuity team will be anxiously waiting to hear from the helicopter the next day,” said Ingenuity chief engineer Bob Balaram in a status update on Friday.

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It’s been fascinating to chart the chopper’s progress. On March 31, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab shared a look at Ingenuity with all four legs reaching out. “We’re in the home stretch. The Mars helicopter has lowered all four legs and is in position to touch down on the Martian surface,” JPL tweeted. “Once it’s fully ready, NASA Perseverance will release it gently to the surface.”

The solar-powered Ingenuity rotorcraft is a high-risk, high-reward technology demonstration, an experiment that could mark the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.

Earlier this month, Perseverance shed a protective pan that kept the helicopter safe during travel, giving us a first look at the flying machine tucked under the rover’s belly on the red planet. This kicked off a series of operations involving driving the rover over to the designated “airfield” spot where it set Ingenuity down on the surface before moving away and heading for an overlook.

Originally published at Shepherd Gazette