Perseverance Rover captures the sounds of driving on Mars

NASA’s latest rover has recorded sound of itself creaking across the surface of the Red Planet, adding a whole new dimension to Mars exploration.

When the Perseverance Rover started tracking on the surface of Mars, a sensitive microphone he was carrying got a first point: the bangs, pings and rattles of the robot’s six wheels as they rolled across the terrain of Mars. has.

“Many people, when they see the images, do not appreciate that the wheels are metal,” said Vandi Verma, a senior engineer and driver at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “When you ride these wheels on rocks, it’s actually very noisy.”

More than 16 minutes of sounds from Perseverance’s 90-foot (27.3-meter) ride on March 7 were captured by Perseverance’s entrance, descent and landing microphone (still in operation on the rover after the historic touchdown on February 18) ). The microphone that is off the shelf was added to the rover to take the public with them during the touch, but the members of the mission are also eager to hear the noises from the surface.

“If I had heard these noises driving in my car, I would have pulled out and called a tow rope,” said Dave Gruel, chief engineer for Mars 2020’s subsystem EDL camera and microphone. “But if you take a moment to consider what you hear and where it was recorded, it makes perfect sense.”

Two versions of the audio clip of the same disc were released to the public on March 17. The first version contains more than 16 minutes of raw, unfiltered sounds from the rover traveling in the Jezero crater. In it is the noise generated by hearing the interaction of Perseverance’s mobility system (its wheels and suspension) with the surface, together with a loud scratching sound. Perseverance’s engineering team continues to evaluate the source of the scratching sound, which could be either electromagnetic interference from one of the rover’s electronic boxes, or interactions between the mobility system and the Martian surface. The EDL microphone was not intended for surface operations and had limited testing in this configuration before it was started.

The second version is a shorter composition of sounds from the longer raw recording of the disc. For this 90-second version, NASA engineers combined and processed and processed to filter three segments from the raw audio file (sections 0: 20-0: 45, 6: 40-7: 10 and 14: 30-15: 00). some of the noise out.

This first sound of a ride across the Martian surface joins a growing playlist of Mars sounds radiated back to Earth by perseverance. A second microphone, part of the Rover’s SuperCam instrument, previously picked up the sigh of Marswind and the fast ticking sound of the instrument’s laser-rotating rocks to reveal details of their structure and composition. Such information will help scientists as they search Jezero Crater for signs of ancient microscopic life, taking samples of rock and sediment to bring back to Earth through future missions.

The SuperCam sounds were part of a series of systems that went through the crossbar, ranging from storing the massive robotic arm of Perseverance to the first observations using the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer.

The cruiser is also looking for a suitable airport for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter to tackle its first flight tests. Now that the right place has been found, the Perseverance and Ingenuity teams plan to implement the helicopter, which has 30 Mars days (sols (31 Earth days)), for up to five test flights.

And then the hunt for ancient life will begin in earnest, with perseverance exploring the site that was once covered to be covered with water. Between the 19 cameras and the Rover’s two microphones, the experience will be packed with sights and sounds. For Verma, who helped “manage” NASA’s last four Mars rovers, plan their routes and send out instructions so they can take a day trip over uncharted terrain, the sound is more than just cool.

“The variations between Earth and Mars – we visually have a feel for it,” she said. “But sound is a whole other dimension: seeing the differences between Earth and Mars and experiencing that environment up close.”

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