'Something' Cleaning Mars Rover

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'Something' Cleaning Mars Rover

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday December 23, 2004 @10:06AM from the interplanetary-rose-royce dept.

bluenirve writes "'Something' has been cleaning the solar panels of the Mars rover Opportunity. "NASA's Mars rover Opportunity seems to have stumbled into something akin to a carwash that has left its solar panels much cleaner than those of its twin rover, Spirit. A Martian carwash would account for a series of unexpected boosts in the electrical power produced by Opportunity's solar panels.""

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Yesterday's News. by Vaevictis666 · 2004-12-23 10:08 · Score: 4, Informative

Dupe from Yesterday
would wind work by grahamsz · 2004-12-23 10:14 · Score: 3, Informative

We had gusts up to 98mph earlier this week and my car looks as dirty as ever
Re:hmmm... by Moridineas · 2004-12-23 10:24 · Score: 3, Informative

Jeez, RTFA :-p That's exactly what they suggest.
Re:hmmm... by Planesdragon · 2004-12-23 10:36 · Score: 2, Informative

Sheesh.

The engineers decided not to build something to shake off the solar panels, because that would make the darn thing heavier -- which woule mean they would have had to leave something else off.

Politics had nothing to do with it.
Re:They looked for the dirt by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-23 10:44 · Score: 1, Informative

What's this "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along." thing anyway?

An old South Park Reference.

An occassional error in Slash code.

A tired old joke.
watt-hours per day by aberson · 2004-12-23 11:06 · Score: 3, Informative

seems a little redundant

power * time / time = power

900 Watts * hours / day * (1 day / 24 hours) = 37.5 Watts.

Why not just say that to start?
1. Re:watt-hours per day by armitage_23 · 2004-12-23 11:36 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  A Martian day is not the same as a Terran day. On top of that, the sun is not up for the entire day.
2. Re:watt-hours per day by Kiryat+Malachi · 2004-12-24 00:04 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Except the Watt *is* an SI unit (the standard SI unit for power, representing 1 J/s). The equivalent Imperial unit would be horsepower, or lbf/s. Further, the joule being a unit of energy, it has nothing to do with this discussion.
  
  I may be an American, but at least I understand the difference between power and energy.
  
  --
  
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Re:Nitrogen by WhiteBandit · 2004-12-23 13:36 · Score: 3, Informative

Hmm, I fubar'd my link. Anyway, my post SHOULD have said:

Or maybe not:

Steve Squyres, the Mars rovers principal investigator, said the rovers' designers deemed the additional weight of adding wipers or blowers to the solar panels was not worthwhile. Instead they increased the size of the panels to maximize the power input.
Didn't We Already Do This Yesterday? by TFGeditor · 2004-12-23 16:02 · Score: 2, Informative

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/2 2/145246&tid=160&tid=14

--
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Re:Design by Sparr0 · 2004-12-23 16:35 · Score: 2, Informative

you do realize the cost of sending payload to the martian surface is measured in millions of dollars per ounce right? a 3 ounce arm would NOT have been worthwhile, considering all the extra (redundant) mechincal support it would have required, as well as software.
Re:hmmm... by QuantumFTL · 2004-12-23 19:50 · Score: 4, Informative

What about several layers of thin clear plastic that's tensioned? You have each layer held down with tabs,and release them one by one as the cells accumulate dust. The released plastic curls up at one end of the cells when released.

I work for Steve Squyres (the Principle Investigator) and he said that they considered this option as well, and it was prone to failure.

Looks like they made the right call after all!

Cheers,
Justin