NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida today. Onboard is an innovative experiment: the 'Ingenuity Mars Helicopter'.

Ingenuity may weigh only about 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), but it has some outsize ambitions.

"The Wright Brothers showed that powered flight in Earth's atmosphere was possible, using an experimental aircraft," said Håvard Grip, Ingenuity’s chief pilot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "With Ingenuity, we're trying to do the same for Mars."

Here are some things worth knowing about the first helicopter going to another planet:

Ingenuity is what is known as a technology demonstration – a project that seeks to test a new capability for the first time, with limited scope.

Previous groundbreaking technology demonstrations include the Mars Pathfinder rover Sojourner and the tiny Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats that flew by Mars in 2018.

Ingenuity features four specially made carbon-fiber blades, arranged into two rotors that spin in opposite directions at around 2,400 rpm – many times faster than a passenger helicopter on Earth.

It also has innovative solar cells, batteries, and other components. Ingenuity doesn't carry science instruments and is a separate experiment from the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.

Ingenuity will be the first aircraft to attempt controlled flight on another planet.

What makes it hard for a helicopter to fly on Mars? For one thing, Mars' thin atmosphere makes it difficult to achieve enough lift.

Because the Mars atmosphere is 99% less dense than Earth's, Ingenuity has to be light, with rotor blades that are much larger and spin much faster than what would be required for a helicopter of Ingenuity's mass on Earth.

It can also be bone-chillingly cold at Jezero Crater, where Perseverance will land with Ingenuity attached to its belly in February 2021.

Nights there dip down to minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius).

While Ingenuity's team on Earth has tested the helicopter at Martian temperatures and believes it should work on Mars as intended, the cold will push the design limits of many of Ingenuity's parts.

In addition, flight controllers at JPL won't be able to control the helicopter with a joystick.

Communication delays are an inherent part of working with spacecraft across interplanetary distances.

Commands will need to be sent well in advance, with engineering data coming back from the spacecraft long after each flight takes place.

In the meantime, Ingenuity will have a lot of autonomy to make its own decisions about how to fly to a waypoint and keep itself warm.

Ingenuity is a fitting name for a robot that is the result of extreme creativity.

High school student Vaneeza Rupani of Northport, Alabama, originally submitted the name Ingenuity for the Mars 2020 rover, before it was named Perseverance, but NASA officials recognized the submission as a terrific name for the helicopter, given how much creative thinking the team employed to get the mission off the ground.

"The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration," Rupani wrote. "Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things."

 If Ingenuity succeeds, future Mars exploration could include an ambitious aerial dimension.

The first helicopter attempting to fly on another planet is a marvel of engineering.

"The Wright Brothers showed that powered flight in Earth's atmosphere was possible, using an experimental aircraft," said Håvard Grip, Ingenuity’s chief pilot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "With Ingenuity, we're trying to do the same for Mars."