NASA’s –1--helicopter is ready for its first flight on Mars this weekend after completing almost all the important milestones before the historic liftoff. After dropping off from the belly of the Perseverance rover, the –1--unlocked its blades and conducted a slow spin test of its blades on Thursday.

Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover, released a GIF image of the slow spin test, indicating that –1--is well on its way to attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. But unlike the landing of Perseverance on Mars, we won’t know right away if the flight was successful.

The rotorcraft weighing 1.8 kilograms is expected to take off from its “airfield” at around 10:54pm ET on April 11 (8:24am IST on April 12) and hover 10 feet above the surface for up to 30 seconds.

--1--guidance, navigation, and control systems will do the piloting for autonomous flight attempt, mostly because radio signals will take 15 minutes and 27 seconds to bridge the 278-million-kilometre gap between Mars and Earth. The first data from the first flight attempt is expected to arrive at NASA’s JPL in Southern California at around 4:15am ET on April 12 (1:45pm IST on April 12).

The Martian atmosphere is 99 per cent less dense than Earth's, which makes it difficult to achieve enough lift. Successful flights of –1-- could provide an ambitious aerial dimension to future Mars exploration.

“We do tech demos like this to push the envelope of our experience and provide something on which the next missions and the next generation can build,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters, said in a statement.

“Just as –1--was inspired by the Wright brothers, future explorers will take off using both the data and inspiration from this mission,” he added.