Huge Martian Dust Storm Threatens Rovers

Riding with Robots writes "NASA reports that a severe ongoing dust storm on the Red Planet has blocked 99 percent of the direct sunlight that powers the Opportunity rover. If these conditions persist for too long, it could finally bring an end to the marathon mission of this robot geologist, and perhaps of its partner Spirit as well. 'Before the dust storms began blocking sunlight last month, Opportunity's solar panels had been producing about 700 watt hours of electricity per day, enough to light a 100-watt bulb for seven hours. When dust in the air reduced the panels' daily output to less than 400 watt hours, the rover team suspended driving and most observations, including use of the robotic arm, cameras and spectrometers to study the site where Opportunity is located ... A possible outcome of this storm is that one or both rovers could be damaged permanently or even disabled. Engineers will assess the capability of each rover after the storm clears.'"

Well, look at the bright side

[Anonymous Crowhead]

These rovers have lasted something like 15 times their original intended/predicted lifespan.

Panel Sweepers

[rez_rat]

I saw a show on Spirit and Opportunity's trek a few nights back. Pretty amazing couple of machines. I was very impressed. When they brought up the topic of their panels' susceptibility to dust and dust storms, I was wondering why no one had thought to install a couple of panel sweepers or something (like windshield wipers)?

All in all, these two little guys have done pretty well.

S-

Re:Turbines

[Fallen Kell]

Space, weight, and environmental limitations make this impractical. Before this mission, we bairly understood the make-up of the dust and how much there may be, let alone being able to create a turbine shaft with seals to keep the dust out of the mechanism (to keep it from causing the prop from binding). The space limitations are another issue. It is not easy to package up a turbo prop into a smaller form-factor for initial launch and travel, unlike the ability to fold up a solar array. At best, what this teaches us is to include a "wiper" system for at least part of the panels so that we can maintain at least a minimal section of solar panel to generate energy for the essential gear and would give us the ability to keep the rover alive long enough to let the wind that exists on the plant to "clean" the other panels in the time after a storm.

Global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

You see Al Gore is right, now even mars suffers from the global warmings.

Re:Do humans really *want* to go to Mars?

[WindBourne]

I volunteer. I am willing to bet that you would find more than 10K just in America who would go. This is the ULTIMATE adventure. Hell, if you are worried about dieing, that can happen in ALL sorts of ways here on earth.

Would not help

[WindBourne]

This is not about the build-up on the panels. This is about sand in the air. What the next rover (MSL) would be better with is either full nukes, or having simple nuke heaters onboard combined with solar panels for powering all else.

Re:Do humans really *want* to go to Mars?

[agengr]

Just about all manned architecture studies use nuclear generators for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Martian weather. A manned crew would not be left without power or heating due to a dust storm of any length. The bigger concern with Martian dust is that it would erode airlock seals, cling to EVA suits, get tracked into the habitat, and generally screw-up mechanical hardware. That's the same exact problem we face with lunar dust (probably more so), and developing techniques and equippment to handle lunar dust would likely be applicable to Mars. I think there's plenty of good reasons for not going to Mars, but dust is an issue I belive we could engineer around today if we had to. These rovers themselves are proof that we can build working hardware that lasts for months/years in Martian conditions and they're not dead yet.

Re:Do humans really *want* to go to Mars?

[agengr]

The architecture studies are assuming maturation of compact nuclear power. I think that is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make since we aren't talking about going to Mars today, tomorrow, or even ten years from now. The point of an architecture study is to say "We need technology 'x' to make the mission possible." Solar power is DOA for manned Mars missions, so we won't be going until we have compact nuclear power. Over about 5 kw, RTGs are already more mass efficient than solar power on Mars and there are concepts in the works to make them nearly efficient as conventional fission reactors.

Re:Oh no, we're ruined!

[UncleTogie]

No, it's only the immigrants who steal stuff on Mars.

...ie, all the humans...