Sia collaborated with NASA on a new video for her recent single “Floating Through Space,” featuring David Guetta. It’s an informative video about Ingenuity, which “is a small autonomous aircraft that was carried to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover.” 

It took Perseverance seven months to float over to Mars before it touched down successfully on February 18, 2021. Ingenuity hasn’t been deployed yet, since it’s waiting for the necessary wind pattern readings for a safe flight before it lifts off. More information on the upcoming test flight is available here. 

The video is packed with fun facts about the details of Ingenuity’s mission, such as Mars having only ⅓ of the gravity that Earth has, the time period for the mission (30 Martian days, called sols) and Ingenuity’s specs – weighs four pounds, is about the size of a tissue box and has a four-foot wide rotor system. Visuals paired with the information show clips of NASA workers testing Ingenuity and Perseverance, plus some models of how both were projected to look like upon landing on the Red Planet. NASA slid references to some of Sia’s songs in as well, including, “Ingenuity has no time for Cheap Thrills. Its goal is simple: to be the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.”

“Floating Through Space” is a production-heavy dancehall-inspired pop song, which was released shortly before her new album Music – Songs From and Inspired By the Motion Picture came out this past February. The movie itself has been accused of allegedly stereotyping autistic people, among other complaints, but “Floating Through Space” and the rest of the songs on the album sound more or less like many other modern pop songs. It’s upbeat and shows off Sia’s impressive vocal range.

UK pop rocker Yungblud and pianist Mike Garson were two other musicians to collaborate with NASA recently. They shared a particularly theatrical rendition of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” in celebration of Perseverance’s landing, which NASA streamed as soon as the landing was officially deemed to be successful. 

Photo credit: Sharon Alagna