A dictaphone for recording the sounds of Mars will be part of the meteorological complex of the landing platform of the ExoMars-2020 mission, the recordings will be made public, the head of the Russian part of the scientific load ExoMars-2020, head of the laboratory of the Institute of Space Research (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Daniil Rodionov, said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
ExoMars-2020 is the second stage of the joint Russian-European ExoMars mission. It will consist of a Russian landing platform and a European rover. The platform will have 11 Russian and two European devices. The rover's equipment will include seven European and two Russian instruments. The arrival of a bunch of vehicles to the Red Planet is expected around March 2021.
“The meteorological complex includes a microphone. This idea - to record sounds from the surface - is not new, let's see what comes of it. Of course, in the future, both surface shooting and sound recording will be made public,”Rodionov said.
In addition, a block of four RGB cameras with a resolution of 2000 pixels will be installed on board the platform. With their help, scientists plan to obtain panoramic photographs of Mars. They will also control the movements of the European rover at the initial stage of the mission.
In addition to the microphone, the ExoMars-2020 weather complex will include light sensors, wind speed, temperature sensors, as well as a humidity sensor and a dust sensor. Also, a "landing module" will be installed at the meteorological complex, which will take measurements during landing.
“During landing, the complex will measure temperature, pressure, they are important from the point of view of building a model of the atmosphere of Mars. When the devices sit down, they are programmed according to some models. The more accurate they are, the more factors that can disrupt the landing of future expeditions can be taken into account,”Rodionov said about the measurements.