Ingenuity weighs 4lb and is made of light carbon fibre.
It arrived on Mars attached to the belly of Perseverance in a dramatic landing in the Jezero Crater on Feb 18. That followed an eight-month journey of nearly 300 million miles.
Once on the surface the rover dropped off the helicopter and drove off to a safe distance of about 200ft.
In images it sent back Perseverance’s tyre tracks could be seen in the Martian dust behind it.
When Ingenuity lifts off, Perseverance’s cameras will be trained on it.
Video will be beamed back to mission control at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, although the data will take some time to assimilate.
The flight plan is to rise vertically for about six seconds to 10ft, then hover for about 30 seconds and rotate, before taking a picture of Perseverance, and then slowly descending.
It will be an autonomous flight and Nasa will not be able to control the helicopter remotely.
The flight details have been pre-programmed into Ingenuity as it takes more than 10 minutes for signals to travel from Earth to Mars.
