Mars Rover Spirit Reaches Winter Tilt 88
An anonymous reader writes "The Mars rover Spirit has been inching carefully down the north slope of the feature 'Home Plate' to tilt its solar panels into the sun to survive the long Martian winter. On Friday, it reached a tilt of 29.9 degrees, probably the final tilt it will reach for the winter. Although it's used the tilt strategy to increase power over the Martian winter twice before, this year it's especially critical, since a global dust storm last summer has left the solar-powered rover covered with dust and starved for power. Geoffrey Landis, one of the MER scientists, commemorated Spirit's trek to the winter haven with a sonnet on his blog. (The second of the two rovers, Opportunity, is at a landing site that's not as far into the southern hemisphere, and hence has less need to find a tilted surface.) OSU has a website explaining some of the software used to visualize the terrain to optimize the tilt, and for the latest news, the ongoing log of the rover status is updated weekly."
A Job well done. (Score:5, Insightful)
Great job rover team.
The two rovers are a constant motivator for all engineers on how a project can still be done right in this world, and how much affect that can have. Nowadays it's depressing when you hear about all the flaws in products people actually sell, and how returning broken shit out of the box is the norm. In business we get delayed projects and stupid alterations at whims sometimes.
But the rovers were done right, and were done for science. And they're still chugging well past their expiration date. I regret I wasn't alive for the moon landings, but in my humble opinion, i sometimes feel as if this was the greater achievement of the two. Especially that they're still going.
Good job. And keep it up.
Re:Stupid but obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
For the original 90 day mission length, running out of juice due to dusty panels would not have been a concern. It would have just been another thing to break and would have added to the mass of the rover, quite possibly costing valuable capacity for other scientific tools.
[insert rant about how some of that war budget could do wonders for NASA]
Re:Stupid but obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid but obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
- Weight
- Dust too fine to be brushed off easilly
- Chance to actually reduce power generation on failure by blocking the solar panels
- Needs power itself
And all this aside from the fact that asking someone to make a solar panel wiper for Mars is going to be an enormously expensive and involved operation. Windspeeds, airpressure, particle count, gravity, temperature all play a part in this. And anyone using windshield wipers on their car knows how unreliable they are to begin with.
Re:Stupid but obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it means no rovers will have an American dust cleaning device.
And as happens more and more, the rest of the world will laugh at us as we legislate ourselves into a third-world mediocrity.
As an aside - OSHA actually has guidelines for one of the rarest of human professions in all history, but they can't keep coal miners safe? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Re:Stupid but obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
That being said, I think you are overstating the complexity and cost a little bit. Now that we do know it would be valuable and extend the lifetime of the mission, it would be trivial to add a kind of "dustbuster" if you will.
This will be true no matter what we are talking about doing with the rover, with the exception of its electronics and sensors. It is essentially a robot, and must have moving parts to achieve locomotion and carry out missions with its arms. So what you are saying is obvious. The question is if the value it adds to the mission justifies it costs.
Once again, this is a consideration with every aspect of the mission, from getting it there, to the energy expended while on the surface. The question should once again be if the value it adds to the mission justifies the costs.
Does it need to be brushed in the first place? I know the poster asked specifically about a brush, but they also asked about "something". It need not be a windshield wiper, but could simply blow whatever atmosphere there is against the panels like an air canister. Since the canister and pumping apparatus could provide variable amounts of pressure, it could be configured to blow the air just enough to start getting rid of the dust without doing significant damage to the solar panels, or at least no more significantly than the dust already did when landing on the solar panel itself.
Now this applies only if it was really designed like a brush (a large tool), and even less if it was a windshield wiper (very small tool). If it was a robotic arm with a "wand" it could be designed to only block a very small portion of the panels during use. Even windshield wipers block a very small percentage of any windshield if they are stopped in the middle of a sweep.
Heck, you could ditch the wand entirely, and just implant into the surface a bunch of raised nozzles like the ones we have on cars now that spray the windshield wiper fluid. A simple omni-directional nozzle could spray out the air onto the solar panel, and would not block the solar panel under any conditions.
Well thats kind of redundant and unnecessary as a comment, no offense. EVERY device on these Rovers is going to require power, either what it brings from Earth, or what it can generate on Mars. Not a reason to dismiss anything out of hand. Once again, if it is justified by the value it adds to mission, its energy costs are then factored in and must be worth it.
As for the power requirements, is it feasible to just reserve a small percentage of the incoming power to keep the air canisters pressurized at all times? I realize that it must use some of the same power it is attempting to protect, but air canisters can remain pressurized for extended periods of time. The amount of power that would be necessary to run pumps to "top off" the air canister should be minimal when spread over such a large duration of time.
There was also a recent post about a type of nanotech windshield that was wiper less and only required a power source. If the power required was low enough, it could be powered directly from the solar panels themselves. There would only be reduction in the amount of power delivered to the main systems. Another possibility, and one that is certainly solid state and required no
"I disagree" != "Troll" (Score:5, Insightful)
Though confusingly similar to the untrained eye, people can legitimately disagree with your personal worldview without trolling.
Although metamoderation almost always vindicates me, and I couldn't care less about my karma ("excellent", BTW) I do find it somewhat discouraging that zealots (whether religious, political, or Apple) manage to silence any discussion on topics they don't like by modding to below the default visible threshold.
If you disagree with me, say so. You might even convince me of the error of my ways. Modding me down just reinforces the view that those who silently disagree with me really have no rational arguments worth hearing.
Re:Stupid but obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stupid but obvious (Score:2, Insightful)