EDL is short for Entry, Descent, and Landing for the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover mission. In order for people on Earth to learn if the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover lands successfully, or what kind of obstacles that the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover encounters while landing, the EDL microphone, the Lander Vision System Camera, the rover lookup camera, the rover lookdown camera and the Descent-stage “down look” camera were put on the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s body. Our 1:2 Peseverance Mars Rover Replica will perfectly replicate the microphone and cameras, and we might even build some of them with real cameras and microphones if possible.
In the past, there are several attempts to send microphones to Mars for sound recording purposes, but none succeeded. In this mission, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover is carrying a microphone on the side of the rover’s body in order to record the sound of the EDL process. The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s EDL microphone is rather simple – as a matter of fact, it is an average microphone that anyone can purchase in any electronic store, only with a little bit of modification by the engineers. But the downside is that it might not survive the impact when the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover lands. Since this is a simple microphone, our Perseverance Mars Rover Replica might use the same type of microphone – of course, we will match the microphone’s appearance definitely – so it will be a real microphone to record actual sounds.
When the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover is descending, the EDL microphone will record the sound of the air friction, the sound of dust hitting the rover body, the sound of the Martian wind, etc. – just like the sound that we hear before an airplane lands on the airport. If the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s EDL microphone luckily survives the impact, it will be able to record the sound of motors, wheels crushing the Martian sand, the sound of the other structure’s deployment process – just like what we hear in a car when the car is driving or opening the doors. For our 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica, the EDL microphone will continuously work as long as it is not broken purposely.