Recently, Mars welcomed yet another visitor from Earth, named Perseverance. If you don’t already know, Perseverance is the third robot we’ve sent to Mars and is specifically designed to collect evidence of life. It has a variety of tools to do so, and in this article, we’re going to talk about one of them!

A helicopter. No, really.

Perseverance carried a tiny helicopter with it on the journey to Mars. Here, I’ll go over some basic facts about this aircraft and then discuss what it could be used for in the future.

First of all, the helicopter’s name is Ingenuity, granted by a student in Alabama. Ingenuity is tiny, weighing only four pounds, but it carries a solar panel, a battery, and a communications device. Another significant feature of this helicopter is its blades. Helicopters on Earth can spin at a maximum of 500 revolutions per minute (rpm). That’s pretty fast, but nothing compared to how quickly Ingenuity’s blades spin-- 2,800 rpm. The difference in speed is to compensate for the atmospheric differences between Earth and Mars. Since Mars’ atmosphere is so thin, helicopters there have to be much faster and lighter to generate enough lift to get off the ground. That’s one of the reasons that Ingenuity only weighs four pounds!

Ingenuity’s job is to demonstrate whether powered flight can work on other planets. It’s the very first powered aircraft ever to be used on another planet, so people are curious to see how well it’ll work. To properly test the capabilities, there are a few tests set up. First, the ground control wants to see if the helicopter can even survive the frigid temperatures on Mars without freezing. After that, they’ll test how well Ingenuity can charge its batteries with the solar panel. Finally, there will be test flights, where Ingenuity is expected to hover for about 30 seconds and travel a few feet.

So what will successful flights mean for the future? Well, for one thing, they’ll prove that we can incorporate helicopters into any plans to colonize Mars. This could be incredibly useful-- helicopters can fly above places that are impossible for regularly wheeled rovers to traverse. They could explore the lava tubes on Mars that would be too difficult or dangerous for a person. There are so many possibilities, and the mission is just getting started!