Its officials announced on Wednesday that the Tenacity rover’s SuperCam instrument that landed on Mars three weeks ago is in “very good health” and has already transmitted the first elements of the rock analysis, accompanied by sounds.
The tool designed by the French, which is supposed to help determine the chemical and mineralogical composition of the surface of the Red Planet for traces of life, transmitted its first data the day after the rover’s landing, on February 18.
Ces premiers résultats sont la preuve de la “très bonne santé” de l’instrument, a dit son co-concepteur Sylvestre Maurice, responsable scientifique à l’Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie (IRAP), lors d’un point presse diffusé On YouTube.
Mission scientist Naomi Murdoch played “sounds for the first time recorded on the surface of Mars with a machine,” which NASA released the first recording of the Martian winds shortly after its landing.
This time, we were able to hear the sound of the SuperCam laser effect when hitting a stone to examine it, which sounds like a clicking sound.
Sylvester Morris reported on the first shot, on the twelfth day of the mission, on a rock called MAAZ, which provided a “very beautiful spectrum” of the constituent elements, notably silicon, potassium and aluminum.
The SuperCam was introduced as the mission’s “Swiss Army Knife”, standing atop the mast of the rover. It combines five measurement technologies, including a camera and microphone, with the aim of studying the geology of Mars and helping to select samples, which will eventually return to Earth for analysis.
It is the product of a Franco-American collaboration between the French laboratories under the leadership of CNES, the French Space Agency and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (New Mexico).
