Listen to NASA’s Perseverance audio rover recorded en route to Mars

What does space travel look like? If you are NASA’s next-generation Perseverance rover on the way to Mars, it looks like a slight whirring.

The rover is equipped with a microphone designed to capture entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sounds once it reaches the Red Planet in February 2021. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) released an audio file on Wednesday that gives an idea of ​​what the rover hears during interplanetary travel.

The 60-second SoundCloud clip comes from October 19 during the rover’s EDL camera and microphone system checks.

This roar comes from the rover’s heat rejection fluid pump. “Located on the starboard aft of the Perseverance, the pump is part of the rover’s thermal system, which will help maintain the operating temperatures of vehicle components even during the coldest winter nights,” JPL said. in a press release Wednesday.

“With my apologies to the person who came up with the tagline for Alien, I guess you could say that in space no one might be able to hear you screaming, but they can hear your heat rejection fluid pump.” , said Dave Gruel, senior engineer for the rover’s EDL camera and microphone subsystem at JPL. Gruel said the mic was able to pick up the murmurs of the pump through mechanical vibrations.

The Perseverance team are excited about this little buzz because it means the mic system is working properly and should be able to record what Gruel describes as “the sound and fury of a landing on Mars”.

Perseverance will embark on a state-of-the-art mission to search for signs of ancient microbial life and collect rock and dust samples for later return to Earth. He also wears an experimental helicopter named Ingenuity.

Circle February 18 on your calendar for the date of the rover with its Martian fate. If all goes well we could get some spectacular sound from his arrival.