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>> NASA's Mars 2020
Perseverance Rover

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is getting the lay of the land

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after landing on the Red
Planet a few weeks ago.

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I'm Marina Jurica with NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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in Southern California.

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I am joined by Perseverance
Integration Lead

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for the helicopter,
Farah Alibay.

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She coordinates the activities

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between the helicopter
and the rover.

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And Ingenuity Operations
Lead Tim Canham.

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His job is to operate
the helicopter

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once it's on the
surface of Mars.

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Welcome you guys.

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>> Hi Marina.
>> Thank you.

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>> Now Farah, what are the
next steps for Perseverance?

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>> We are just
about getting ready

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for the helicopter mission here.

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We've passed all latest reviews

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and we're just
finishing the checkouts

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of the mobility system
and the arm on Mars

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ready to support Ingenuity.

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>> And Tim, you must
be getting so excited

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for Ingenuity to stand on its
own on the surface of Mars.

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What steps need to happen before
that for you and your team?

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>> Yes, we are
definitely very excited.

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Right now, the helicopter is
still attached to the rover,

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so we're keeping
it warm and fed,

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we're charging the batteries.

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And we're also working
with Farah's team

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to identify a final
site for the helicopter.

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>> Now, for both of you, there
seems to be a lot of steps

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and preparations that go
into the helicopter phase.

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Can you tell me a
little bit about that?

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>> Yeah, for sure.

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Once we start the
helicopter mission,

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the first thing
that we have to do

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is drop the debris shield.

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That was the shield
that protected us

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doing entry,
descent, and landing.

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Then we're going to
travel several days

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to the helicopter
drop-off location.

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Once we get there, it's
actually gonna take us

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about a week to
deploy the helicopter.

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It's currently horizontal,

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and we have to go
through several steps,

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and each one of
which we wanna image

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and have ground in the loop

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before we get to
that very last step

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where we do that last separation

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between the rover
and the helicopter

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and then drive away from it.

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>> Yes, and our team is
working very closely with Farah

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to make sure our
plans are in place

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and all our commands are ready.

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And we've additionally been
working with the rover team

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to identify the perfect
site for the helicopter

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that should be flat with not
too many big rocks on it,

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but also good texture so
our navigation cameras

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can find their way
across the surface.

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>> A lot of things
to look forward to.

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So to get the latest updates,

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follow @NASAPersevere
on Twitter and Facebook.

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Take a deeper dive on
the missions website,

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mars.nasa.gov/perseverance,

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where you can also
find all the raw images

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being sent back by the rover.

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And for the helicopter,

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visit
mars.nasa.gov/technology/helico.

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Thanks so much for watching