Perseverance Mars Rover Entery Descent and Landing

Other than the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s EDL microphone, there are also cameras in the EDL sensor system.

There is a camera that is located on top of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover, so it can look up at the descent stage and take photos of it. This camera is called the rover “up look” camera. When the sky crane maneuver and the descent stage separates, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s rover “up look” camera can take photos of the process so that people on Earth can see if everything is ok. Our 1:2 Pseverance Rover Replica will perfectly replicate the appearance structure of the rover “up look” camera.

There is another camera that is located under the rover, called the rover “down look” camera. Its job is to capture what it sees underneath the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover so that people on Earth will know if the rover lands successfully. Our 1:2 Pseverance Rover Replica will perfectly replicate the appearance structure of the rover “down look” camera.

The Lander Vision Camera (LCAM) is a part of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s Lander Vision System. Because the LCAM is located outside of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s body, it needs to be small and light (less than 1 kg, or 2.2 lbs), but luckily, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s LCAM is only intended to be used only during the EDL process, so it doesn’t need to endure the environmental condition of Mars. The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s LCAM is in fact a new feature added on top of the old Lander Vision System which is inherited from the previous mission. High up in the air and with fast-dropping speed, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s LCAM needs to take photos at low exposure time, and it needs to take photos quickly and feed the images quickly to the Vision Complute Element with low latency in order for a fast process. The images will be processed within 10 seconds. The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s LCAM is not expected to survive on Mars, so after the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover lands, the LCAM’s mission is over. Other cameras will take over the photo-taking jobs.

For our 1:2 Perseverance Mars Rover Replica, it will perfectly replicate the appearance structure of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover‘s LCAM, and we might even put a real camera in it so that you can see what it sees from a screen.

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.