This is really exciting. Perseverance is on its way to Mars, but hey, just another rover.
But Ingenuity is a Martian Helicopter! How exciting is that? I can’t wait to see it in action.
Ingenuity will be deployed from under the belly of Perserverance, then take off using two counter rotating blades. It is repowered by a solar panel on the top, and keeps in communication wirelessly with Perserverance, to receive instructions and send back aerial photos. So as long as it stays within range, it might operate for months.
The Futurism article includes a video simulation of Ingenuity in action.
https://futurism.com/nasa-mars-helicopter
This will be the first time that an aircraft has been flown on another world, and the potential is enormous
The vehicle has to be small and light, it will operate in an atmosphere that is 0.6% as dense as ours. but a similar type of vehicle, deployed, say, in the Venusian atmosphere, or Titan, one of the moons of Jupiter, could be much larger, and fly for months without stopping.