Nasa wants to fly a helicopter on Mars for the first time

Ingenuity has four feet (1.2m), a box-like body, and four carbon-fiber blades arranged in two rotors spinning in opposite directions. - Nasa pic

WASHINGTON (AFP): More than a century after the first powered flight on Earth, Nasa intends to prove it's possible to replicate the feat on another world.

Transported aboard the Mars 2020 spacecraft that arrives at the Red Planet on Thursday (Feb 18), the small Ingenuity helicopter will have several challenges to overcome -- the biggest being the rarefied Martian atmosphere, which is just one per cent the density of Earth's.