California:
US space agency NASA’s newest Mars rover has sent back recordings of – bangs, pings and rattles- the 1st-ever sounds of driving on Mars.
The sounds have been aspect of a 16-minute raw feed sent back by the Perseverance rover as it started rolling more than the surface of Mars in its 1st test drive two weeks ago.
“A lot of people, when they see the images, don’t appreciate that the wheels are metal,” stated Vandi Verma, a senior engineer and rover driver at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “When you’re driving with these wheels on rocks, it’s actually very noisy.”
More than 16 minutes of sounds from Perseverance’s 90-foot (27.3-meter) drive on March 7 have been captured by the rover’s entry, descent, and landing (EDL) microphone, which remains operational on the rover just after its historic touchdown on February 18.
The off-the-shelf microphone was added to the rover to enable take the public along for the ride throughout touchdown, but mission members have been eager to hear the sounds from the surface, as well.
“If I heard these sounds driving my car, I’d pull over and call for a tow,” stated Dave Gruel, lead engineer for Mars 2020’s EDL Camera and Microphone subsystem. “But if you take a minute to consider what you’re hearing and where it was recorded, it makes perfect sense.”
???? Hear that? That’s the sound of me driving more than Martian rocks. This is the 1st time we’ve captured sounds though driving on Mars.
: https://t.co/oqdnCJShjmpic.twitter.com/yKwypUSnE7
— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) March 17, 2021
Two versions of the audio clip of the similar drive have been released to the public on March 17 exactly where the 1st version attributes more than 16 minutes of raw, unfiltered sounds of the rover traveling in Jezero Crater.
“In it, the noise generated by the interaction of Perseverance’s mobility system (its wheels and suspension) with the surface can be heard, along with a high-pitched scratching noise. Perseverance’s engineering team continues to evaluate the source of the scratching noise, which may either be electromagnetic interference from one of the rover’s electronics boxes or interactions between the mobility system and the Martian surface,” according to NASA.
The EDL microphone was not intended for surface operations and had restricted testing in this configuration just before launch.
The second version is a shorter compilation of sounds from the longer raw recording of the drive. For this 90-second version, NASA engineers combined 3 segments from the raw audio file processing and editing them to filter out some of the noise.
The SuperCam sounds have been aspect of a series of systems checks the rover has gone via, ranging from the unstowing of Perseverance’s huge robotic arm to generating its 1st climate observations utilizing the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer.
The rover has also been browsing for a appropriate airfield for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter to try its 1st flight tests. Now that the ideal spot has been discovered, the Perseverance and Ingenuity teams are generating plans for the rover to deploy the helicopter, which will have 30 Martian days, or sols (31 Earth days), to total up to 5 test flights.
And then the hunt for ancient life will start in earnest, with Perseverance exploring terrain when believed to be covered with water. Between the rover’s 19 cameras and its two microphones, the encounter will be packed with sights and sounds.
For Ms Verma, who has helped “drive” NASA’s final 4 Mars rovers, the audio is more than just cool.
“The variations between Earth and Mars – we have a feeling for that visually,” she stated. “But sound is a whole different dimension: to see the differences between Earth and Mars, and experience that environment more closely.”
One of the objectives of the rover’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, which includes the search for indicators of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and previous climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the 1st mission to gather and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to gather these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth evaluation.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is aspect of NASA”s Moon to Mars exploration strategy, which incorporates Artemismissions to the Moon that will enable prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.