Next Mars Lander, DON'T FORGET THE MICROPHONE!

[rogers_buck]

Please.

 

[JonClarke]

hear! hear! (in more ways than one) <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

Forgive my ignorance, but what would we expect to hear in the thin Martian atmosphere? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[alexblackwell]

<i>Forgive my ignorance, but what would we expect to hear in the thin Martian atmosphere?</i><br /><br />Probably the same types of phenomena that the designers of the Mars Microphone (MM) hoped to hear.

 

[backspace]

Alex- <br /><br />Forgive me if I'm mixing memories, but isn't Phoenix a reflight of the backup MPL craft? And if it is indeed using the backup of UMoscow's LIDAR, shouldn't they still be hitching along?

 

[najab]

Yes, Pheonix is MPL all over again, but the microphone(s), if I remember correctly, were a separate experiment - Deep Space 2 I think it was called. I don't think the microprobes are being reflown.

 

[alexblackwell]

<i>Forgive me if I'm mixing memories, but isn't Phoenix a reflight of the backup MPL craft? And if it is indeed using the backup of UMoscow's LIDAR, shouldn't they still be hitching along?</i><br /><br />No, the 2007 Phoenix Mars Scout is a <i>re-use</i> of the mothballed 2001/2003 Mars Surveyor Lander, which was cancelled and placed in storage following the MPL loss. However, the former was almost an exact duplicate of the latter, though with different science instruments. <br /><br />The Phoenix PI, Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, did retain some of the MPL/MS2001 Lander instruments (<i>e.g</i>., RAC, TEGA, MARDI, etc.) but the Russian-supplied LIDAR (from IKI and RSA) for MPL was not re-proposed for Phoenix. Instead, a LIDAR is part of the Canadian-supplied meteorology suite (MET).

 

[alexblackwell]

<i>Yes, Pheonix is MPL all over again,...</i><br /><br />No, see my previous reply.<br /><br /><i>...but the microphone(s), if I remember correctly, were a separate experiment - Deep Space 2 I think it was called. I don't think the microprobes are being reflown</i>.<br /><br />No, Deep Space 2 (DS2) was a completely different experiment from MM, and neither is scheduled to refly again, though MM was slated to fly on the now-defunct French Mars NetLander mission.

 

[elguapoguano]

It would be interesting to "hear" what Mars sounds like... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#ff0000"><u><em>Don't let your sig line incite a gay thread ;>)</em></u></font> </div>

 

[thermionic]

I did the circuit design and a bit of layout for the sound chip in that thing. For a company called Sensory Circuits. I still get teased about crashing the Mars Lander. By the way, the chip could generate sound as well as capture sound. Presumably it screamed the traditional 'augering-in' epithet when the parachutes releaset 500 meters up...

 

[rogers_buck]

Humm, in space nobody can here you scream, so I guess the output was for the "People of Mars" speech? Was it an off-the-shelf codec like Crystal or TI or a custom?

 

[thermionic]

Hah! yeah it was programmed to say "Take me to your leader." Actually the chip was designed as a super low-cost speach generation/recognition device for kid's toys. On the sound acquisition side, there was a built in audio amp, ADC, DSP, program ROM. Very light, low power, cheap. The company had some connection to some guy I think at UC Berkeley who took advantage of a few ounces of spare payload in the mission to squeaze it in. Although I didn't have any connection to the space program itself, I was really excited. Even though the mission failed, I'm always happy to reminisce that there's a bit of me on Mars.

 

[rogers_buck]

I'd like to have seen the FAE's face when someone asked him for a version of the kid's toy sound chip that was rad hardened.