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Thick Dust Alters NASA Mars Rover Plans
coondoggie writes "NASA's long-running Mars rover Opportunity is getting ready for the harsh Martian winter, but this year for the first time in its nearly eight-year history it needs a sunnier location to continue its work. NASA said the rover, which depends on solar power for energy, is sitting just south of Mars' equator and has worked through four Martian southern hemisphere winters. Being closer to the equator than its now defunct twin rover, Spirit, Opportunity has not needed to stay on a Sun-facing slope during previous winters but now its solar panels carry a thicker coating of Martian dust than before."
Windshield wipers! My kingdom for windshield wipers!
A good guess is that, going forward, all new Mars landers will have either a wiper system or the ability to compress Martian atmosphere and then go POOF on the solar panels. Yes, more weight, but when the payoff is potentially many more functional months of service, it'd be worth it.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
If only the rovers had a smart cover, they could turn on and as you open it and it cleans the solar panels from finger prints every time! Martian finger prints in this case.
Our gelsacs hunger for the words of the mighty K'Breel on the battle against the invaders from the blue world.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
why are we reading stories about Nasa on some shitty "network" splog laden with adverts ?
we should be reading about this on Nasa's site the internet was supposed to cut out the middleman instead its full of shitty sites who do nothing but take without giving anything back.
news for nerds ? news for desperate blog owners
It's my understanding that dust devils have done a pretty good job of keeping the solar panels clean over the years.
. . . we could send someone up to dust them off, right?
"Check your oil for you, sir? That left front tire could use a bit of air . . . "
Now I remember why we used to call them "service stations" instead of "gas stations" . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Like a "meteor shower"? Ouch!
Table-ized A.I.
What if the martian winds were to un-bury spirit's wheels and make it mobile? Would it start sending data back to earth? Has it ever stopped sending data?
It would be super cool if they were able to get it working again with a little help from the martian environment.
Always willing to place the needs of his Citizens before his own, the Speaker replied: "What more needs be said? One invader lies immobile and frozen in the plains. A second lies buried in a slowly-accumulating layer of carbox at the northern pole, a third never left the blue world's gravity well and spirals ever inward to a fiery doom (our analysts suggest a 75% probability of any surviving parts being condemned to dissolve in the toxic blue soup!), and although a fourth may have recently escaped the blue world's gravity well, it is destined to spend the next season squarely in the crosshairs of our Orbital Defense Forces, and yet you still require a progress report against this - this last struggling holdout?"
"Let me reassure you personally, dear Citizen: as surely as dust continues to be distributed over the invader's solar panels, the Council sees no crisis, and barely an Opportunity. But even the dimmest of opportunities is worth seizing!"
~``~ideo~`ransmission fr`m news ~eport~~`~`hecksum mismatc~~``~~``
Having delayed a hungry Speaker from his return home after a Council meeting, it is reported that the equally hungry gelsacs of enthusiastic citizen #64226 were seized, freeze-dried, ground into powder, and then tossed into the winds as part of the DDoS (Distributed Dusting of Solarpanels) attack still being conducted by our brave forces against the remaining invader at Devaur's End.
"A shining example to all who live on our fair world, this enthusiastic Citizen took advantage of a rare Opportunity to take the battle directly to the enemy, and he shall be remembered fondly! EVER ONWARD TO VICTORY!" (Oh, and thank you for the excuse, Citizen. Don't worry too much. Sometimes they grow back!)
yes, Spirit is not sending data. It either got too cold, or something, but it's gone silent. The folks at JPL spent several months trying to contact it, but no joy.
The real story is WHERE Opportunity will be wintering. It has found a nice cozy place with some very interesting rock outcrops. Clay? Sulfates? Who knows but the pictures look very interesting. Another dust issue is that the Min-TES has been disabled by dust. Opportunity could really, really use Mini-TES now in it current location. Another dust issue is what MSL will be doing, if anything, about dust on its instruments.