NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Mars Sends Space Sound

Mars Rover with Microphones

The first Mars rover equipped with microphones is NASA’s Perseverance rover which enables it to record sounds from beyond our planet. One of these microphones was intended by NASA to encapsulate the moments of the rover’s landing on the Red Planet but it managed to get a 60-second recording in a recent trip where it fired up.

Perseverance rover is carrying new tools this time to study the planet including a tiny helicopter which was launched in summer by NASA and is expected to arrive on Mars in February. Multiple Microphones are featured in the rover and one of them is named ‘EDL’. This name given to this microphone is justified by the work assigned to it i.e.  Entry, Descent, and Landing to be recorded of the rover on the Red Planet.

EDL Works Good

During a check of the rover’s camera and microphone system on October 19, EDL microphones were fired up by NASA’s Perseverance team on Perseverance. This resulted in a one-minute audio clip which is now available for the public to listen to on the space agency’s SoundCloud account.

NASA also noted that the rover still being in space isn’t the best place to pick up audio. Only the vibrations experienced by the payload can be picked up by the microphone which is the audio available to record at that moment. Danish company processed the sound file which is also the creator of EDL microphone hardware.

NASA also acknowledged the true importance of the novelty of getting an audio file recorded in space indicating that the EDL microphone is fully operational. All the sounds of the rover will be picked up by the microphone when Perseverance arrives at Mars early next year including rover landing, the parachute releasing and the wheels hitting the land.