NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Achieved Powered Flight for the First Time in Martian History
For the very first time in human history, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter took to the sky and became the very first aircraft to achieve controlled, powered flight on another world.
There are many moments throughout history that warrant our undivided attention. Moments when humanity accomplishes something so extraordinary that we cannot help but redirect our focus onto the exciting events unfolding before our eyes. These moments completely reshape our view of the world and challenge what we thought was achievable. They push the boundaries of what was possible and move us forward to new horizons. Earlier this year, humanity encountered one of these moments.
On Monday, April 19, 2021, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the very first aircraft to achieve controlled, powered flight on another world. For nearly 2 months, the helicopter waited patiently on the surface of the Red Planet for its moment to shine, overcoming many challenges along the way. And finally, at 3:34 a.m. EDT, after weeks of rigorous preparation, the solar-powered helicopter lifted off from the Martian surface and achieved powered flight for the first time in Martian history.
Flying on Mars is Hard
Flying on Mars is not an easy task. To begin, the Martian atmosphere is only about 1% as dense as Earth’s (0.020 kg/m3), which means that there are very few molecules in the air for Ingenuity’s blades to interact with. Back on Earth, helicopters generate lift by spinning their airfoil-shaped blades at extremely high speeds, moving lots of air at a high velocity over their rotor blades. As air flows over the top of each blade, the air pressure on top of the wing drops significantly, creating suction that pulls the rotor blade up along with the rest of the helicopter. This is known as the Bernoulli Principle. On Earth, where there’s plenty of atmosphere to work with, it’s fairly easy to accomplish this. But on Mars, where the atmosphere is extremely thin, it's not so simple.
This illustrates one of the greatest engineering challenges that NASA’s Ingenuity team had to face. Flying on the surface of Mars is like flying at an altitude nearly three times the height of the Himalayas back on Earth. Therefore, a lot people believed flying on Mars would be an impossible task. But to Ingenuity’s team back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the potential that flight could bring to Mars exploration was just too invaluable to pass by.
To overcome the challenges of flying on Mars, Ingenuity was equipped with two separate rotors, each made of lightweight carbon-fiber blades. Spanning about four feet in diameter, each rotor was considerably large relative to the body of the helicopter, which enabled the rotorcraft to maximize the amount of contact it could make with the surrounding atmosphere. With an elegantly designed airfoil shape, each blade was curved to give Ingenuity the ability to move as much of the Martian air as possible over each blade. And at very high speeds, the blades were more than capable of generating the lift required to boost Ingenuity off of the dusty Martian surface.
With each rotor spinning in opposite directions of one another, Ingenuity’s rotor blades rotate at about 2,400 rpm. That is extraordinarily fast. For reference, helicopters on Earth spin on average at about 400 to 500 rpm. But on Mars, that is just simply nowhere near fast enough to lift off of the surface. Even with the size and curvature of its blades, each of Ingenuity’s rotors has to spin at incredibly high speeds to create enough lift needed to fly within such a thin atmosphere.
But generating lift was not the only challenge. There’s a limit to how much force the blades of the helicopter can produce. After all, there are only so many molecules in the air for them to come into contact with. It’s gravity that restrains a vehicle like Ingenuity from leaving the ground. So to achieve powered flight, the rotorcraft needed to be extremely lightweight. Weighing less than 4 pounds (on Earth), the helicopter was virtually weightless on the surface of the Red Planet. And that’s with Mars only having about one-third the gravity of Earth.
Without a heavy payload, Ingenuity was freed from the shackles of gravity that would otherwise anchor the aircraft to the surface. And really, there’s no other way around it. If the helicopter were to be any heavier, it just wouldn’t be able to produce the lift required to leave the ground. And that means the helicopter was limited to what it could carry. Any equipment brought along for the mission had to be small and had to be lightweight.
Powered by Solar
To supply the rotorcraft with enough power to spin its rotor blades at 2,400 rpm, Ingenuity is powered by a six lithium-ion battery system. Tucked safely inside the helicopter's body, each battery is recharged every day by a solar panel that sits right on top of the rotor system, directly above its blades. That solar panel supplies the batteries with all of the energy the helicopter needs to operate on the surface. It powers the helicopter’s rotor system during flight, operates internal heaters to protect Ingenuity from cold nights, and supplies it with enough energy to power all of its electronics (its avionics).
Each day, Ingenuity has to replenish its energy supply to support everything it has planned for the day. And it also has to reserve enough energy to help it survive the impending night. If it were to run out of energy overnight, there is a good chance it would be irreparably damaged by the cold temperatures that occur during a Martian evening. So to maximize its energy supply for a day of hard work, the solar panel was equipped with solar cells that were uniquely optimized to absorb the spectrum of light present on the surface of Mars.
With each of its six lithium-ion batteries fully charged, Ingenuity has enough energy to power the helicopter through one 90-second flight during each Martian day, consuming about 350 Watts of power on average. By design, this means that Ingenuity can fly for up to 90 seconds at a time, to distances of around 980 feet (300 meters), and at an altitude of up to 15 feet from the ground.
That may not sound like much, but for the first powered flight on another world, that’s actually a very ambitious goal. But certainly not an impossible one. As we just learned earlier this year, Ingenuity was able to achieve this goal with remarkable success, exceeding nearly overyone’s expectations, while accomplishing what many people thought was impossible.
A Completely Automated Flight
The Ingenuity team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California received confirmation of the first flight at 6:46 a.m. EDT, a few hours after the flight itself took place. At that time, Mars was about 178 million miles away from our blue marble, separated by a distance that would take radio waves roughly 16 minutes to traverse. But with the sheer volume of data being sent back to Earth, it actually took closer to 3 hours for the helicopter team to receive the downlink confirming Ingenuity’s lift-off and touchdown. This means that observing the flight in real-time was completely out of the question. It also means that Ingenuity had to fly entirely on its own.
On Earth, you can fly a rotorcraft remotely, like a drone, for example, by using a remote controller. This is made possible because the radio signals being sent back and forth between the controller and the drone are received almost instantaneously due to their proximity to one another. But because data must be sent to and from the Red Planet over hundreds of millions of miles, engineers on Earth are unable to control the aerial vehicle in real-time. Instead, Ingenuity has to take off, fly, and land autonomously without any human control from engineers on Earth. As if flying on Mars wasn’t hard enough.
To accomplish this remarkable feat, engineers at JPL equipped Ingenuity with some pretty sophisticated autonomous flight control software along with a suite of very useful sensors and cameras. To fly on its own, the helicopter has to be incredibly smart. Using a range of sensors, including an onboard inertial measurement unit, Ingenuity collects data on its movement through the atmosphere to ensure it remains on its designated flight path. It then uses this sensor data, along with images taken of the surface with its downward-facing black-and-white navigation camera, to determine its position and altitude relative to the ground. And then, Ingenuity has to process all of this data on its own so that it can make critical decisions to guide itself safely through the Martian atmosphere. That is a truly extraordinary feat.
Every decision that Ingenuity has to make during its flight has to be made alone. The helicopter team determines the flight parameters, sends the flight command sequence to Mars, and tells Ingenuity when it is time to fly. But once the helicopter receives that command, every critical decision from that point forward is made autonomously. In fact, everything the helicopter does while it's on the Martian surface has to be done autonomously. It has to fly, land, deploy to the surface, keep itself warm, charge its batteries, and communicate with Earth, all on its own. And that is not an easy thing to do.
A Beautiful Companionship
Ingenuity was built to accomplish one thing: to fly on Mars. But for such an ambitious display to be brought to life, the helicopter had to first overcome the incredible challenge of surviving the unrelenting journey to the Red Planet. Then, once deployed to the surface, Ingenuity had to survive the extremely harsh and unforgiving conditions present on the planet’s cold and irradiated surface. Only then could the helicopter and its team conceive of achieving flight on Mars.
To make the remarkable seven-month journey to the Red Planet, Ingenuity hitched a ride with the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. Perseverance is the centerpiece of the Mars 2020 mission. And Ingenuity is its trusty companion. Together, they launched from Earth at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base on a massive two-stage Atlas V rocket back on July 30, 2020. And after a long seven-month cruise through the cold vacuum of space, they both landed on the surface of the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021.
To survive the extreme temperatures of interplanetary travel, Ingenuity was heavily dependent on its good friend Perseverance. Throughout its entire journey to Mars, the rover provided Ingenuity with shelter, power, protection from extreme temperatures, and communication with Earth. To do that, Perseverance carried the helicopter inside of its belly, where it remained firmly fastened to its chassis for the duration of the trip.
During the cruise to Mars, both Ingenuity and Perseverance were encased within a protective aeroshell, part of the spacecraft that guided them to the Red Planet. Upon arrival, the aeroshell and its heatshield played a crucial role in protecting the rover and helicopter from the extremely high temperatures present during its turbulent descent. But as it approached the surface, the heatshield eventually detached from the rest of the spacecraft, exposing the rover's underbelly to the harsh Martian atmosphere so that it could guide itself toward a safe landing.
To protect Ingenuity from rocks and dust that could have potentially damaged the helicopter during the rover’s powered descent to the surface, Perseverance safely encapsulated the rotorcraft inside of a guitar case-shaped graphite composite debris shield beneath the rover. This protective covering shielded Ingenuity from all kinds of volatile debris that could have otherwise seriously harmed Ingenuity during the rover’s descent. And it would remain there for most of the rover’s surface operations leading up to Ingenuity’s deployment.
Without the rover, Ingenuity would not have been able to survive the journey to Mars. Throughout the entire cruise, Ingenuity was completely dependent on Perseverance for protection, power, and communications with Earth. And after they arrived safely on the Red Planet, Ingenuity would continue to rely heavily on its six-wheeled companion to survive and operate on the surface.
Deploying Ingenuity to the Surface
Tucked safely inside the belly of the Perseverance rover, Ingenuity remained attached to the rover for a little over 6 weeks after landing on the Martian surface. During that time, the helicopter team at JPL had to check in and make sure that Ingenuity survived the landing and that both the rotorcraft and its base station were in good health for the journey ahead. Remember, this was the first time NASA ever sent a helicopter to Mars, so there was a lot of uncertainty as to whether Ingenuity would survive the trip.
But surviving the launch, cruise, and landing on Mars was just the first of many milestones that Ingenuity had to overcome before its first flight. The next important milestone involved finding an airfield location where Ingenuity could attempt that first flight. And then, once a location was agreed upon, Ingenuity would have to overcome the most challenging milestone of all. In a series of very complicated maneuvers, the Helicopter Delivery System had to safely drop Ingenuity off on the Martian surface.
Finding a Place to Fly
Throughout the early stages of the rover’s surface operations, the helicopter team was on a sharp lookout for any potential Martian real estate where Ingenuity could attempt its first flight. By design, the airfield needed to be a 33-by-33-foot (10-by-10-meter) area where the helicopter could safely take off and land with each successive flight. Ideally, this plot of land needed to be relatively flat, level, and free from any obstruction that could hinder the rotorcraft’s ability to fly. And it also needed to be within good view of the rover, which would later find a nice parking spot about 211 feet (64.3 meters) away to watch from a distance.
Once an airfield location was determined, it was time to make the critical decision to get rid of the debris shield. For over four weeks, the debris shield remained fastened to the rover's underbelly, protecting the helicopter from any debris that could have harmed the helicopter while the rover proceeded with its own science objectives on the surface. But once the rover was in a suitable position, ready to proceed to the recently scouted airfield, the protective covering was at last ready to be released.
On March 21, 2021, Perseverance dropped the debris shield that once offered Ingenuity its protection. And from this point forward, the helicopter would be forever exposed to the Martian atmosphere and all of its hazardous features. Yet another milestone Ingenuity had to surpass.
Soon after the debris shield's release, Perseverance moved on and began its relatively short drive toward the airfield. And after about a six-day drive, the rover was in position to begin Ingenuity’s deployment. This process is notably one of the most elaborate and challenging milestones that Ingenuity had to overcome. There are a series of intricate maneuvers that had to be executed perfectly for the helicopter to safely deploy to the surface. If anything were to go wrong, that would be the end of the mission for Ingenuity.
For this reason, the helicopter team was very careful to make sure everything was in order before proceeding. Every single maneuver that makes the helicopter’s deployment possible is closely coordinated, irreversible, and completely dependent on one another. Once the deployment process was initiated, there was no turning back.
Deploying to the Surface
Before Perseverance could begin deploying Ingenuity to the surface, it first needed to be centered squarely within the selected airfield. The drop-off location was important to get right. Once the helicopter was planted on the surface, that is where it would remain until lift off. And that is where it would land after its first flight. So once the rover was positioned at the center of the airfield and everything was confirmed to be working properly, the helicopter was ready to begin the deployment process.
The helicopter deployment process takes about six sols (six Martian days) to deliver Ingenuity to the surface of the Red Planet. To deploy safely, the helicopter had to unlock and unfold itself from its compact position beneath the belly of the rover. Up to this point, throughout the entire trip to Mars, the rotorcraft had been securely fastened to the Mars Helicopter Delivery System that anchored Ingenuity to the rover’s chassis. And now, in a carefully orchestrated sequence of events, it had to finally break itself free from this locked position beneath the rover.
The first stage of this process involved activating a bolt-breaking device that was used to releas the locking mechanism that once held Ingenuity tightly in place. That took place on the first Martian day. On the following day, a cable-cutting pyrotechnic device was used to activate a spring-loaded mechanical arm that held Ingenuity in place in order to begin rotating the helicopter out of its horizontal position. At this point, Ingenuity also extended two of its four landing legs.
On the third day, a small electrical motor finished rotating the helicopter by pulling the mechanical arm until it latched into place, bringing the helicopter into a completely vertical position with only two of its legs extended. Then, on the fourth day, another pyrotechnic device fired and snapped Ingenuity’s two remaining landing legs into position.
After incrementally unfolding itself into its final flight configuration, Ingenuity was finally in position to drop down to the Martian surface below. In its final form, Ingenuity was suspended beneath the rover with about a 5-inch (13-centimeter) drop to the ground. From here, only a single bolt and a couple of dozen tiny electrical contacts held Ingenuity in place. The only thing left to do was charge up its six batteries and prepare for a life without the support from its trusty companion. And finally, on April 3, 2021, Ingenuity cut the cord and dropped to the surface below.
Dropping to the surface was a task that Ingenuity was well prepared for. Each of the helicopter’s four ultra-light and springy landing legs is made of carbon fiber tubes that are designed to cushion the helicopter’s fall when it lands. Whether that drop was from its initial deployment or from its landing after the first flight, Ingenuity’s legs were there to break the fall.
After Ingenuity safely landed on the surface, Perseverance drove away as quickly as possible so that Ingenuity’s solar panels could immediately gain access to the sun’s rays. And from that moment forward, Ingenuity was in a constant fight for energy on the Red Planet. Lack of exposure to the sun could be the difference between life and death. So as soon as the rotorcraft was able to access the sun’s rays, it immediately began to recharge its batteries to begin building up a healthy reserve of energy for the weeks ahead.
Preparing for Flight
With four legs firmly planted on the surface of Jezero Crater, Ingenuity found itself one step closer to achieving flight on the Red Planet. But to cross that finish line, Ingenuity would first have to survive on its own for about two weeks leading up to its first scheduled flight. And to do that, the rotorcraft would have to prove that it could endure the harsh conditions present on the Martian surface. And then, if victorious, the helicopter team would have to conduct a series of preflight checks to get Ingenuity ready for lift-off.
Surviving on Mars is not an easy task. A theme that by now should be all too familiar. During a Martian day, the Red Planet only receives about half of the solar energy from the sun compared to a day on Earth. So solar energy is in short supply and highly invaluable. At night, temperatures can drop to as low as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius). And at these temperatures, the rotorcraft’s electrical equipment would almost certainly freeze, crack, and be irreparably damaged, rendering the rotorcraft completely incapable of accomplishing its first flight.
So to survive these extremely cold Martian nights, Ingenuity needed to keep itself warm and maintain plenty of stored energy to operate all of its other vital equipment. To accomplish this, the rotorcraft utilized energy reserved from its time aboard the rover, along with energy collected throughout the day, to power a set of internal heaters that were designed to keep its electronics at safe temperatures throughout the night. If these heaters were to fail at any point throughout the mission, Ingenuity would essentially freeze to death and be unable to do anything useful for the rest of its time on Mars.
Fortunately, Ingenuity’s heaters were working flawlessly during its first night alone on Mars. And once Ingenuity was confirmed to have survived its first evening, the helicopter team’s next priority was to do everything within their power to make sure that Ingenuity was in excellent shape for its first attempt to fly on Mars. That involved first unlocking the helicopter’s rotor blades, allowing them to spin freely. And second, confirming that each blade was capable of changing its pitch (angle of the blade), which is critical for lift-off. Finally, the team also had to conduct both a low-speed (50 rpm) and a high-speed spin test (2,400 rpm) to make sure the rotor system as a whole was functioning properly, all while Ingenuity waited patiently on the surface.
Each of these milestones had to be met before Ingenuity could safely attempt its first powered flight on Mars. Up to this point, Ingenuity’s team had dedicated over 6 years of their life to getting the Mars 2020 helicopter safely to Mars. So cutting corners was not an option. Each milestone was handled with extreme care to ensure that both the helicopter’s equipment and its software were in peak condition before the first flight. And once the team was confident that everything was ready to go, they gave the order and commanded Ingenuity to lift off from the surface in a daring attempt to fly on another world for the very first time in human history.
The Very First Flight
On the day of the flight, the helicopter team back on Earth waited nervously for over three excruciating hours at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for confirmation of the first flight to come in. Once that command sequence for initiating the initial flight was transmitted, there was no going back. From here on out, all anyone could do was wait patiently and hope that the flight attempt was successful.
Communicating back and forth between mission control on Earth and the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars is a challenging task. To initiate the first flight, radio signals have to make a long journey across the far reaches of space, pinballing from one telecommunications system to the next.
Beginning with NASA’s Deep Space Network, radio signals have to carry the flight command sequence from Earth all the way to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in orbit around the Red Planet. From there, the transmission is relayed from orbit to the Perseverance rover through its ultra-high frequency (UHF) antenna (operating at 400 megahertz). Then, once the rover receives the transmission, its central computer relays the flight command to the Helicopter’s Base Station located onboard the rover, which then finally transmits the data to the helicopter.
Conversely, the base station aboard the rover receives transmissions from the helicopter, temporarily stores them, and then routes the data back through the rover’s central computer on a similar path back to the Reconnaissance Orbiter, which then sends the data back to Earth where it is received by the Deep Space Network. It really is remarkable how much work goes into communicating with robots on Mars. Without all of the existing infrastructure in place, none of NASA’s operations would be possible.
Taking to the Sky
On the surface of Mars, Ingenuity received the flight command, powered up its rotor system, and took to the air on April 19, 2021, at around 3:34 a.m. EDT. That’s about 12:33 p.m. in Mars time (Local Mean Solar Time), which gave Ingenuity plenty of opportunity to charge up its batteries before its first flight. Data from the rover’s MEDA instrument also informed the team that wind speeds would be around 2–6 m/s on the day of the flight, optimal for flying on Mars.
With conditions on the surface ideal for takeoff, Ingenuity powered up its rotor system and began spinning its blades at 2,400 rpm. Without a moment to spare, the rotorcraft commanded its blades to change their pitch, enabling each blade to take a deep bite into the thin Martian atmosphere. And in an instant, Ingenuity boosted off of the ground with enough thrust to lift off of the surface, ascend vertically to an altitude of about 10 feet (3 meters), hover for roughly 30 seconds, and then safely land.
A few hours later, at 6:46 a.m. EDT early Monday morning, Ingenuity’s team at JPL received the results of the first flight attempt. And to their excitement, altimeter data confirmed that Ingenuity successfully achieved powered flight on another world for the first time in human history, very much like the first moments when the Wright Brothers achieved powered flight here on Earth.
From a short distance away, the Perseverance rover watched from afar as Ingenuity achieved its first historic flight. Parked about 211 feet (64.3 meters) away at a location known as the Van Zyl Overlook, the rover was able to capture beautiful images and video of the helicopter using its Mastcam-Z and Navcam imagers. But most importantly, the rover was there to support every aspect of the mission, from acting as a communications relay between the helicopter and Earth to collecting environmental data before each flight to make sure conditions were safe to fly.
With the rover’s help, Ingenuity was able to achieve the unachievable. And in the weeks that followed, it would continue to surpass a series of additional goals and milestones, pushing the boundaries of its limitations while going further than the team could have ever imagined.
The Future of Flying on Other Worlds
With its first flight in the books, Ingenuity’s team was ready to push the helicopter to its limits to see what the rotorcraft was capable of. Unlike the rover, Ingenuity is a technology demonstration, which means that its sole purpose was to provide the science community with a proof of concept. Its principal objective was to test whether or not powered flight on another world was possible. And with the success of Ingenuity’s initial flight attempt on April 19th, the team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory realized that flying on the Red Planet was not only achievable, but would likely be an integral part of future exploration on Mars.
In the time that has passed since Ingenuity’s first flight, the Mars helicopter has successfully completed 6 flights in total. Its 6th flight was completed on May 27th, 2021, and further flight attempts are underway. With each subsequent flight, Ingenuity has increasingly pushed the boundaries of its limitations, flying higher, faster, farther, and longer with each attempt. And with much excitement, the Mars helicopter has continued to shatter expectations, excelling with each attempt to fly within Mars’ atmosphere.
With all of Ingenuity’s systems performing beyond the team’s expectations, the Mars helicopter has now begun a new operations demonstration phase, which was never part of the plan. Having established that powered flight on Mars is possible, the team now aims to explore how a new aerial dimension can benefit future exploration on Mars and other worlds. And this new perspective could demonstrate to the world how future operations could utilize powered flight to explore these worlds from new vantage points.
A New Dimension of Exploration
Ingenuity opened up an entirely new dimension of exploration on the Red Planet. Over time, there has been an evolution to exploring other worlds in our solar system. The Mariner 4 carried out the first flyby of the Red Planet in 1965. The Mariner 9 became the first satellite to orbit Mars in 1971. NASA’s Viking 1 lander became the first spacecraft to land safely on the surface of another planet in 1976, touching down in the Chryse Planitia. And Sojourner became the very first wheeled robotic rover to operate on the surface of Mars in 1997, which itself was just a technology demonstration.
Each of these missions added a new dimension to planetary exploration, paving the way for NASA to explore other worlds with greater accessibility. The Viking 1 lander was a huge step toward terrestrial exploration on Mars. But Sojourner opened up a new dimension and freed us from being stuck at a one-dimensional point on the surface to being able to drive around on the surface so that NASA could explore interesting locations for scientific study. And that technology demonstration eventually paved the way for both the Curiosity and Perseverance rover missions.
Now, Ingenuity has added a third dimension to Mars exploration, freeing us up from the surface and giving us reign over the sky so that we can explore a vaster range of territory from above that would otherwise be inaccessible to any rover bound to the surface. And just as Sojourner led to future rover explorers such as Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance, Ingenuity will likely lead to the development of future helicopters that will be used to add an aerial dimension to future missions to the Red Planet.
What the Future Holds
There is an exceptional amount of potential that future rotorcrafts could bring to extraterrestrial missions, not only to Mars but to any world in our solar system with a sufficient atmosphere capable of supporting flight. Future helicopters could survey terrain from above and serve as scouts for human missions. They could be used to investigate interesting territory such as caves, cliffs, craters, volcanoes, and other terrain that rovers simply cannot reach. Or they could even carry small payloads such as samples collected from hard-to-reach spaces or lightweight instruments for in-situ scientific research.
The Ingenuity helicopter has proven that flight on another world is possible. And now, much larger and more extensive helicopters can be incorporated into future robotic and human missions to Mars at a larger scale. Conceptual designs are already underway to determine what it would take to deploy and operate a larger helicopter on Mars. And there is even a truly extraordinary mission planned to send a drone-like rotorcraft named Dragonfly to Saturn’s moon Titan, which currently plans to launch in 2027.
The Mars 2020 mission that brought both Perseverance and Ingenuity to the Red Planet has only been on the surface for a relatively short period of time. And already, it has surpassed some truly extraordinary milestones, from flying on Mars to extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere to recording sound for the first time on Mars. And as the mission continues, the rover will continue to explore Jezero Crater, searching for signs of ancient microbial life while collecting Martian samples for future return to Earth, while Ingenuity tags along to provide support from above.
There is so much left to come from the Mars 2020 mission. Ingenuity has already made history by proving flight is possible on Mars, which will lead to many exciting future missions to the Red Planet. But Perseverance has a goal that is even more ambitious than flying on another world: discovering the very first signs of life beyond planet Earth. And if concrete evidence of ancient life were found on Mars, it would completely change the course of human history. Every human being on planet Earth would think differently about what it means to be a living thing in the Cosmos. And our world would be changed forever.
