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'Something' Cleaning Mars Rover
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.""
Dupe from Yesterday
We had gusts up to 98mph earlier this week and my car looks as dirty as ever
Jeez, RTFA :-p That's exactly what they suggest.
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?
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.
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