After a Long Struggle With Martian Dust, NASA's InSight Probe Has Gone Quiet (arstechnica.com) 54
NASA's InSight lander has probably phoned home for the last time from the planet Mars. From a report: The space agency said the spacecraft did not respond to communications from Earth on Sunday, December 18. The lack of communications came as the lander's power-generating capacity has been declining in recent months due to the accumulation of Martian dust on its solar panels. NASA said that it is "assumed" that InSight has reached the end of its operations but that it will continue to try to contact the lander in the coming days. Also on Monday, the InSight Twitter account shared a photo with a message saying this was probably the last photo it was sending from Mars. UPDATE 12/21/22: NASA's InSight Mission Officially Over
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Lack of hyperlinks for such a claim is usually a sign one is dealing with Class-A Bozo.
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I suspect you're right and that chaplains probably acquire them on the market, but even if they don't- who cares. Troops deal with death, and like it or not, most Americans involved religious faith in their imminent death. It is in the government's (military's, really) interest to make sure the religious faith of those that need that in their lives remains strong.
I'm an atheist, and
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Stay on your meds, remember all the bad things that happened last time you thought you were cured?
Re: Ask yourself (Score:2)
When you read this meme did it feature kermit or willie wonka?
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Other ideas... a tilt & tap mechanism. Tilt the panels so the dust slides off, and a mechanical 'tap' to loosen the excess.
Small compressor w/ tank and blower on the robotic arm. Could be useful to blow dust away from other items... e.g. bottom of a drilled hole for better picture taking, cleaning calibration targets, etc.
For helicopter's - place them where air currents from the rotors keeps them clean.
It's not like scientists & engineers don't know by now that Mars is a dusty place. And that dus
Re:How difficult could it be (Score:5, Insightful)
Other ideas... a tilt & tap mechanism. Tilt the panels so the dust slides off, and a mechanical 'tap' to loosen the excess
The dust is super clingy due to electrostatic forces so that will not work.
Small compressor w/ tank and blower on the robotic arm
The average surface pressure on Mars is 610 Pascals. This is 1% of Earth. The compressor would have to be massive to move the same amount as on Earth.
It's not like scientists & engineers don't know by now that Mars is a dusty place. And that dust needs to be managed along with other mission objectiv
And have you ever wondered why scientists and engineers did not put your solutions on the rovers? Maybe their expertise on Mars would tell them why your solution simply would not work.
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Just get Musk to send someone to Mars with a brush
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You want to brush the solar panels with coarse, sharp, and clingy dust? Is that not the equivalent of rubbing the panel with sandpaper every brush?
Yes, of course it is. It's almost as if the commenters not only don't know what they're talking about, but also assume it's the designers at JPL and NASA that are ignorant. There are reasons why Ingenuity's solar panel is above the rotors instead of underneath in their downwash.
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I remember reading somewhere that there was a system proposed (not sure if implemented) which made solar panels vibrate in order to shed accumulated dust.
Abstract: https://iopscience.iop.org/art... [iop.org]
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I've asked this question before, and for other landers it really didn't make a lot of sense. They would have added significant landed mass and fairly complex controls. For the insight lander specifically, this was not the case. It already had a complex manipulator as part of its toolbox. Adding a dust brush, equivalent to the head of a toothbrush, to the wrist of the existing robotic arm would have cost only a few grams in mass and possibly extended the mission indefinitely. Even if it didn't work, at
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Adding a dust brush, equivalent to the head of a toothbrush, to the wrist of the existing robotic arm would have cost only a few grams in mass and possibly extended the mission indefinitely.
Martian dust is not similar to the powdery stuff you're familiar with; it's coarse and each grain has sharp edges. You could accomplish what you're proposing by replacing your dust brush with a small patch of 20 grit carbide sandpaper.
Re: How difficult could it be (Score:2)
Now make it unfold as it descends through the atmosphere of a hostile planet.
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To attach the Martian dust equivalent of a windshield wiper to the solar panels?
It's such an obvious solution, and presumably NASA engineers are smarter than you or me, so there has to be some reason they didn't do that.
Re: How difficult could it be (Score:2)
Needs a real test, else muck (Score:2)
> windshield wiper to the solar panels?
It should be tested on Mars first; the wrong fluid may make it worse. Certain kinds of dust have mucked up my windshield after pressing the squirter.
That being said, maybe a chance whirlwind will come along and blow enough dust off to get power working again. However, the longer it's without power, the more likely it is for internals to crack from the cold. I wonder if amateurs could volunteer listen in after the official silence period starts. I wonder what amateu
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> windshield wiper to the solar panels?
It should be tested on Mars first; the wrong fluid may make it worse. Certain kinds of dust have mucked up my windshield after pressing the squirter.
I don't think that a fluid system is being proposed. With temperatures so rarely going above 0C and commonly being at -100C or lower, i don't think there's any fluid that could reliably be used. Even if there was, it's a nonrenewable resource.
What the GP is more likely referring to is a simple brush or squeegee system that would remove surface dust. It doesn't have to do it all, or even do it well from the outset, just enough to power the wiper a bit more to allow more power. Even if the surface goes from 1
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I have to agree with one of the other people in the thread however, if "adding windshield wipers" was such an obvious solution, especially since dust coverage has long been an issue on mars probes, there's got to be a reason why this hasn't been implemented.
Isn't the answer simply that the lander was budgeted and designed for a 90-day mission? So, there was no need for a solar panel cleaning solution. In contrast, Curiosity was planned for a 2-year mission and given a RTG power source that was expected to last at least 14 years (and hence is still operating after 11 years). Thus, the already known solution for dust on solar panels is to ditch the solar panel in favor of a more reliable, longer lasting, and more powerful energy source.
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Isn't the answer simply that the lander was budgeted and designed for a 90-day mission? So, there was no need for a solar panel cleaning solution. In contrast, Curiosity was planned for a 2-year mission and given a RTG power source that was expected to last at least 14 years (and hence is still operating after 11 years). Thus, the already known solution for dust on solar panels is to ditch the solar panel in favor of a more reliable, longer lasting, and more powerful energy source.
Although wouldn't it be a good idea to try to find ways to clean the solar panels? Yeah, for bigger missions they would probably want to use the RTG, but there still could be smaller missions that those might be the right solution and solar would be best. Just seems like it could be a win to be able to say "the panels were getting dirty, but we were able to clean them off and keep making science!" If they don't try it they won't know if it would work in situation where they would really need it;
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Minibot! (Score:1)
I'd like to see them try a mini-bot that brushes them of. Test on a small portion, and if it doesn't work, stop.
Such may only work with rovers because stationary landers may land at an angle too steep for the bot.
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They could make the transparent top layer a bit thicker to tolerate scratching. But another problem is that it may not wipe off. For example, I've had dusty windshields where I forgot to put washing fluid in, so was left with wipers-only. It didn't work, it just made small clumps or patches that were still hard to see through. The wiper blade just passed right over.
My point stands: gotta test on Mars.
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It's just a matter of whether or not they think it's worth the engineering effort.
With the rate of landers sent to Mars, it could be an engineering problem that literally takes decades to solve.
I'm quite certain very educated people have brushed over the short list of major problems with cleaning solutions, and agreed that any solution is hard, and likely to require a lot of testing... on Mars.
Ideally, the best way would be simply to
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Indeed, without the rivers and strong winds seen in Earth, the dust on Mars has not been ground down so much. Sharper edges damage everything that lands there, which is the the wheels of the rovers need to be so robust.
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Sad. (Score:2)
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Except that was two separate consecutive messages which merely reported battery status and ambient light levels. Humans joined the two together and induced pathos by attributing a second tear-jerking meaning to the whole. This worked far better than HAL repeating "my mind is going, I can feel it. Stop, Dave, stop" as it was slowly lobotomised.
The good news... (Score:2)
500 watt-hours? (Score:2)
So is this senior editor talking about the power of the solar panels or the battery capacity? Do
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Need to make our probes self-cleaning (Score:2)
Re:Need to make our probes self-cleaning (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Need to make our probes self-cleaning (Score:2)
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Re: Need to make our probes self-cleaning (Score:2)
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You could stand quite still in 100mph Martian wind, because it has very little force. Just as 2psi air also has very little force potential. More than the ambient 0.095 PSI, but you could still stand up quite easily in 100mph 2psi air, on Mars or otherwise.
I'm too lazy to plug in the ideal gas numbers to see how much momentum we're really talking about, but I'm prett
Re: Need to make our probes self-cleaning (Score:3)
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Didn't have to happen (Score:2, Offtopic)
Could have a RTG but no, environmentalists are afraid of atoms.
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Thanks for proving my point, alarmism ahoy!
Maybe stop wetting yourself over something that's vastly less risk than your drive in to work every day?
https://www.quora.com/Since-Vo... [quora.com]
"RTGs have survived launch vehicle explosions, and have actually been reused after being retrieved. In at least one notable case, an RTG has survived re-entry and crashing into an ocean â" without a heat shield or a parachute. Thatâ(TM)s the Apollo 13 Lunar Moduleâ(TM)s RTG, which is sitting at the bottom of the Sou
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What did I 'misinterpret'?
You wrote a histrionic terror-filled blurb about what awful things would happen if a RTG blew up on the launch pad, apparently wetting your panties at the same time.
I offered examples of WHERE THIS HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED and nothing comparable to your contrived scenario ever even came close.
You are deeply wedded to being in fear, regardless of facts. Personally, I'd say that might be a good reason to talk to a mental health professional. It's irrational.
Or... crawl back into the f
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Tragedy struck on Slashdot today as an Anonymous Coward's head exploded due to his inability to cope with the truth. Skull fragments and brain matter rained down on the editors as they scrambled for cover. Fortunately, damage was minimal due to the small amount of brain matter involved, experts say.
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The most powerful RTG developed to date ( GPHS-RTG) produces just over 300W and weighs 56kg. InSight needs 600W, so you'd need two of these things. That's about 16% of the probe's launch mass; over 31% of its landing mass (presumably the difference is fuel). I couldn't find a weight for InSight's batteries, but typical lithium-ion pouch cells have a power density between 235 - 430W/kg. On the surface, it appears that a solar panel and batteries would be much lighter than an equivalent RTG. RTGs are probably
They could have continued, or could they? (Score:1)