The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will have its own "Wright Brothers" moment on Mars once it launches its Ingenuity helicopter on the red planet's atmosphere. According to The New York Times' latest report, the experimental helicopter, which will fly through Mars' thin atmosphere, is a part of the agency's next Mars mission.

According to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's previous report, NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter will travel 314 million miles of interplanetary space to deliver the Perseverance rover on Mars.

"This is very analogous to the Wright brothers moment, but on another planet," said the project manager of the Mars helicopter at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory over the past six years, MiMi Aung.

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter to make history on Mars

Since the red planet's atmosphere doesn't have much air for Ingenuity to push against to generate lift, flying on Mars is not a trivial endeavor. The atmosphere at the surface of Mars is just 1/100th as dense as Earth's atmosphere. A lesser gravity, about one-third of Earth's gravity, will help objects get airborne.

However, taking off from Mars' surface is the same as flying at Earth's surface, around an altitude of 100,000 feet. Since it is more than twice the altitude that jetliners typically fly at, there hasn't been any terrestrial helicopter that has ever flown that high.

Perseverance will be the main goal of the Ingenuity helicopter, delivering the fifth robotic rover of NASA to Mars. It will be one of the three missions headed to Mars this year, which is scheduled to launch on July 20.

"I'll tell you, the thing that has me the most excited as a NASA administrator is getting ready to watch a helicopter fly on another world," said the NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine, making a point to highlight Ingenuity at a news conference last week previewing the Perseverance mission.

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