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I read today that the two NASA Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have just completed their fifth year of roaming the planet. However, their future is threatened by a build-up of dust on the photovoltaic panels, reducing the amount of electrical power available to them.
The solution is so obvious
that someone at NASA ought to be fired - future rovers should be equipped with a water tank and be able to spray the dust off the solar panels. The water would be kept liquid by a small slug of plutonium in the bottom of the tank.
I can be contacted by the Nobel Prize committee at the email address posted on my profile page.
Alternatively, the panels should be equipped with an ultrasonic shaking anti-dust system similar to those fitted to digital SLR camera sensors.
Another good reason to shake those panels.
http://www.rsc.org/...re-rocking-sunshine
[AbsintheWithoutLeave, Nov 08 2013]
trick for repelling dust on Mars
https://www.youtube...watch?v=feTZ0YBLNXk
tldw: ring-shaped magnets can collect dust away from a small area. [Voice, Jan 16 2023]
Alpha radiation makes sparks, detects smoke, and eliminates static cling
https://www.youtube...watch?v=ZBHIp967TD8
[Voice, Jan 17 2023]
[link]
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could run the two of them together demolition-derby style to knock the dust off... make for good coverage too. |
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Well obviously [FlyingToaster] is going to get that Nobel now. |
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By the way - I'm giving you a bun for the last sentence, which isn't such a terrible idea at first glance. |
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to be used once every five years......on projected 90 day missions. like suggesting that you should bring baby toys on a romantic camping trip because you might eventually need them. Nobody really thought they would last this long. |
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I remembered an HB idea for something like the Blowfish Tearaways to be used on solar panels, with the idea that they could be peeled off and discarded when dusty. As with the water in a reservoir this too would eventually run out. |
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The vibrator is keen. What about something like those spark guns that use to be used on vinyl LPs to impart a charge and make the dust jump away? That sort of thing would last a long time on Mars. |
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I don't know about the wiper thing but here is your bun for making me laugh today. |
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I know I suggested something like this last year and I got boned for impracticality due to freezing of dirty water on the panels being worse than dust, much like spraying frost on the windshield. Perhaps some other solvent would work better than water. |
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Before we get down on the designers lets give them some serious credit for getting so much of it right; taking liquid water to mars is a preposterous idea. I think the vibrator may be a good idea but people need to recognize that the rovers were purpose built devices, not designed to be used in the ways that good fortune (unbelievable luck) has allowed. The deterioration of the solar panels was supposed to closely parallel the damage that the dust would cause to the other systems. Every part of the device will eventually fail if it experiences blowing dust and the designers basically built the rovers to a baseline dust tolerance. Remember that other systems have already failed due to wear and that Spirit would have benefited much more from a system to raise the dragging wheel (which is why it is critically down on power I/R to the solar panel capacity) than a system to wipe the solar panels. NASA deserves some serious credit for the cheaper, better, faster, design model on this mission. |
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I have a brief vision of about 1000 years in the future, you can't send a rover anywhere without squeegee men stopping it and wiping its solar panels and then radioing Earth asking for a tip. |
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I just want the rover to have a multi purpose arm that can do simple maintenance and repair operations, but it fails the Who Shaves the Barber test as it would be the most failure prone part of the whole thing. If in a thousand years there is anything on mars living enough to demand gratuity i would be very surprised. I'm still waiting for a moldy fung to grow out of the Wolf Trap. |
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//fails the Who Shaves the Barber test// [MFT] |
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//taking liquid water to mars is a preposterous idea//
Good point - if they'd *really* thought about it, they'd have sent it as oxygen and hydrogen, and used it in a fuel cell, and then they could have used the waste water to clean the solar panels. |
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a robot arm with a rag made of non melting material? |
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I went to jpl out here once. They say the
windstorms have saved them many times over the
years. They did not plan for this. It was dumb luck.
Seems like a better finish is all they need next time. |
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//a robot arm with a rag made of non melting material?//
Yeah, they hauled that parachute all the way there - may as well make use of it. |
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Linky. If you use an electromagnet you can probably keep dust off indefinitely by rippling the magnetic attraction. |
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