NASA has announced that it is targeting for the first flight of its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at approximately 3:30 a.m. EDT, US on Monday the 19 April.
According to NASA, the 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).
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, take images, collect environmental data, and host 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.