Starship Asterisk*

Starchild wrote:Seems to me that this is something that the smart people at NASA could have foreseen (they knew the planet was covered in fine reddish dust long before any of these 'explorers' landed). A little Swiffer-type mechanism with soft brush used regularly shouldn't have been that hard to make, considering the marvel of the rest of this little machine. For some reason or other, men just don't see or think about dust until it's to the point of ruining things! Poor little "Spirit" could have used the brush and still been motoring around.

BDanielMayfield wrote:See the Wikipedia article (linked to here in the description under "dusty") “Cleaning Event.”

Bruce

Ron-Astro Pharmacist wrote:Obviously the ten year old plus technology is still working fine. I’ll bet it’s a blast for those who get to operate and analyze the data. Will it be equipment failure or budget failure that does it in first? Opportunity’s mission has certainly paid off but there will be a time when NASA has to balance the gains versus the continuing costs. None of us want either but one will come sooner or later. :( I hope the budget part is holding up as well as the vehicle itself and that only “dust” devils visit any time soon.

Dustin M. wrote:Have they ever considered using a sound method (like using a sound thump) to make 3D sound images of what is below the soil using reflected sound and more than one rover?

Chris Peterson wrote:

Dustin M. wrote:Have they ever considered using a sound method (like using a sound thump) to make 3D sound images of what is below the soil using reflected sound and more than one rover?

None of the rovers have any sort of sound detection instruments, and none have an actuator capable of producing ground vibrations detectible from hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.

Dustin M. wrote:Have they ever considered using a sound method (like using a sound thump) to make 3D sound images of what is below the soil using reflected sound and more than one rover?

Nitpicker wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:
See the Wikipedia article (linked to here in the description under "dusty") “Cleaning Event.”

Excellent point Bruce. The dust only builds up because of storms. And the dust only blows off because of storms. This is probably a big part of the reason for the longevity of the mission.

• Dust build up is constant and unrelated to storms:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mer/images.cfm?id=1823 wrote:

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Solar-Panel Dust Accumulation and Cleanings 12/5/05

<<Air-fall dust accumulates on the solar panels of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the solar arrays. Pre-launch models predicted steady dust accumulation. However, the rovers have been blessed with occasional wind events that clear significant amounts of dust from the solar panels.

This graph shows the effects of those panel-cleaning events on the amount of electricity generated by Spirit's solar panels. The horizontal scale is the number of Martian days (sols) after Spirit's Jan. 4, 2005, (Universal Time) landing on Mars. The vertical scale indicates output from the rover's solar panels as a fraction of the amount produced when the clean panels first opened. Note that the gradual declines are interrupted by occasional sharp increases, such as a dust-cleaning event on sol 420.>>

http://athena.cornell.edu/kids/did_you_know.html wrote:

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<<A concern at the beginning of the Mars Rover mission was that, as the mission progressed, dust buildup on the solar panels and a weakening sun (due to the onset of winter) would cause the rovers to lose their ability to generate power. But the Opportunity rover is producing nearly as much power as it did when it landed on Mars in January, 2004. As Opportunity explores the slopes of "Endurance Crater," its solar panels are tilted toward the sun. This increases the solar array output by a substantial amount. However, scientists say there are other factors at work that could be allowing the panels to collect even more sunlight. Martian winds may be whisking the dust off the rover and there is the possibility that frost, which settles on the solar panels at night, removes the dust when it evaporates during the day.>>

Nitpicker wrote:

Dustin M. wrote:Have they ever considered using a sound method (like using a sound thump) to make 3D sound images of what is below the soil using reflected sound and more than one rover?

Several probes have used ground penetrating radar, or "sounding" radar. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-base ... ary_radars

(Current Chang'e 3 mission also has GPR capability.)

neufer wrote:

• Dust build up is constant and unrelated to storms:

Nitpicker wrote:

neufer wrote:
Dust build up is constant and unrelated to storms

My thinking is that the dust only got into the air in the first place, due in large part to storms.

• Sturm und Drang perhaps:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_and_Drang wrote:
<<The protagonist in a typical Sturm und Drang stage work, poem, or novel is driven to action—often violent action—not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, but by revenge and greed. Goethe's unfinished Prometheus exemplifies this along with the common ambiguity provided by juxtaposing humanistic platitudes with outbursts of irrationality. The literature of Sturm und Drang features an anti-aristocratic slant while seeking to elevate all things humble, natural, or intensely real (especially whatever is painful, tormenting, or frightening).>>

Dustin M. wrote:No need to be hundreds or thousands of km away. A hand full of small rovers that could communicate between each other to know each others locations and time a medium sized cylinder hitting the ground hard.

Nitpicker wrote:
The dust only builds up because of storms.
And the dust only blows off because of storms.

neufer wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:
The dust only builds up because of storms.
And the dust only blows off because of storms.

We know for a fact that dust devils are primarily responsible for cleaning the dust off the solar panels. Dust devils, thermals, surface wind shear and other forms of dynamic turbulence are mostly responsible for filling the planetary boundary layer with the dust that "rains down" on the solar panels. It is rather sloppy to simply attribute all this to "storms."

neufer wrote:Dust build up is constant and unrelated to storms

Nitpicker wrote:My thinking is that the dust only got into the air in the first place, due in large part to storms.