Huge Martian Dust Storm Threatens Rovers 164
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.'"
Oh no, we're ruined! (Score:4, Funny)
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Dust Devils (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Dust Devils (Score:4, Informative)
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Batteries (Score:2)
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http://www.space.com/news/070705_dusty_rovers.html [space.com]
However, the article also mentions the cold breaking solder joints:
John Callas, project manager for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., explained that a dea
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Well, look at the bright side (Score:5, Insightful)
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Turbines (Score:1, Funny)
Jim
RunFatBoy ( http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net] ) - A workout system for beginners.
Re:Turbines (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Turbines (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that the dust storms are blocking the light before it hits the panels, not just covering the panels with dust. I doubt they'll know how much dust has accumulated on the panels as a result of this storm till it's over.
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Re:Turbines (Score:5, Informative)
Also, whatever turbine you added would go into the weight of the rover, which then affects the parachute/airbag requirements for landing, and during drive around time you're carrying that extra weight uselessly most of the time.
This setup:
http://store.motorwavegroup.com/8-micro-turbines-
generates about twice as much power as the article suggests is needed, on earth (presumably 1atm pressure) at 10m/s wind speed.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309084261/html/22.ht
claims that martian windspeeds peak at 50m/s, but that the dynamic pressure is only 1/9th of that due to the lower atmospheric pressure.
That gives you an equivalent of only 6m/s equivalent speed (at peak intensity!).
So
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Well, nevermind then. Glad we had this talk.
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It's also too bad there's not a human being there -- but hey, we got problems here on Earth. Just wait'l we get those cleared up.
Cosmic Coincidence? (Score:2, Funny)
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From this other one: "(...) the dust caused visibility to drop near zero, which translates to people not being able to see in front of them."
This is not a coincidence, it really looks like they were written by the same person, with the same everyone-is-stupid-and-must-be-explained-everythi n g-style.
Why stop there?
"Arizona dust storm, which translates to a storm of dust"
"could be damaged
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Dupe, dupe, dupe, dupe of URL (Score:1)
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Just wait for it... (Score:1)
Panel Sweepers (Score:3, Insightful)
All in all, these two little guys have done pretty well.
S-
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Grump
Re:Panel Sweepers (Score:5, Informative)
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Maybe just bang them against the side a bit, if they didn't include a mini-broom.
Would not help (Score:3, Insightful)
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Can't they work around this? (Score:2)
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I have often thought they could use some compressed gas to blow the dust off the solar panels. It may be useful for other things as well, such as blowing the dust off a rock under study. When looking at images you can see that where they have ground down a surface with the RAT tool, there is often a lot of dust on them, left over from the operation. They could have an efficient little compressor that runs as a background task filling up the reservoir. Even water under pressure could be useful for some inter
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Second, I presume that the dust storm will not last forever and eventually the sun will shine on the rovers once more. At that time, it would be nice to somehow clean the solar panels and recharge the rover.
Oy. (Score:1)
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Swi
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Now, checking to see if that is the correct ammmount, on the other hand...
Extra tidbit of knowledge (Score:2)
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Are people really so stupid that they need this explained to them? And if so, how on earth do they ever make sense of their electric bill?
Your comments are at odds with your low UID. It confuses me.
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But still, when someone reads 700 watt hours surely they comprehend that's can be expressed as 100 watts times seven hours, ya? Eh.
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The power expression is the one used by JPL / Caltech when speaking of the power the panels generate. I'm nowhere near EE enough to be able to debate the pros and cons of alternatives...
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Let me guess. You have a watt metre and have measured and labeled every light fixture and outlet in the house. You then calculate the time of use and multiply that by the rate of electricity. If it doesnt match your bill you bitch and scream at the electric company about them "stealing ur powers".
Meanwhile us hoopleheads just pay the damn thing and let the elecric company handle the monitoring. What fools we are!
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My, aren't we crabby today?
Don't be silly. For one thing, I don't speak l33t. For another, the benefit of knowing how something you're paying for is being measured is key to understanding how to economize if you feel the need. For example, if you're trying to decide between a propane and electric hot-water heater, you'll want the one that's cheaper to run. They tell you an estimate of the cost, but that's based on average rates and usage. You can get a much better idea if you understand your own usage patt
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How many metres per watt do you get?
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You're bitter about something. I can tell.
So you're saying you forgot everything you learned in high school. That means most of American history. (Or British history, or Eritrean history, or wherever it is you come from.) I sure as hell hope you don't vote, because you obviously have insufficient background knowledge to make civic-minded decisions about anything.
No, I don't know the brand names of the chips in my car any more than I know the manufacturers of the light switches in my house. But I do know h
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I would think there are a lot of people not even out of high school that read slashdot.
I would wager that there was a time in hyour life when you didn't know that the watt rating was a rating over time.
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They are probably quite happy thinking in terms of watt hours per hour
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Do humans really *want* to go to Mars? (Score:2)
The more I learn of Mars, the less I think that any manned mission to the Dust Storm Planet would be anything more than stupid. And probably suicidal.
Luna has it's own dust problems, but no months-long hemisphere-wide storms, and that's a Very Good Thing.
Re:Kudzoo (Score:2)
Re:Do humans really *want* to go to Mars? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Niven asked him what the future plans for colonizing the Moon was, and the man replied, incredulously, "Why would anyone want to live on the moon?"
Niven turned to the assembled reporters and said "Why don't we ask? Let's have a show of hands: How many of you would want to live on the Moon" About
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If NASA, it is 5 decades away. Why? Because they have lost their way WRT to this. Not their will, just their way. The DOD may be willing to take some major risks in collaboration with private enterprise. And private enterprise IS going to mars within 2 decades, and possibly within 15 years. Why? Because, the moon will almost certainly be a VERY expensive colony to set-up. But once Bigelow/others have a single building on the moon, just about EVERY major nation
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If we can get a handle on lunar dust, Martian dust really shouldn't be a big problem.
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That's one of the "issues" I was referring to.
If we can get a handle on lunar dust, Martian dust really shouldn't be a big problem.
Pray tell how "months-long dust storm that coats the solar arrays rendering them ineffectual and us very, very, very cold and powerless" is remotely similar to "sea of tiny glass static-electric shards"
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RTGs don't generate enough power, and "regular" nuclear generators a way past too massive.
What kind of generator are you referring to?
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How about wind power?
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Take this matter to congress. Someone has to think of the children and their inalienable right to talk about religious assholes anywhere in this solar system.
Poor little guy! (Score:2, Funny)
Captain Obvious (Score:3, Funny)
But it would light a nanowatt bulb for seven hundred billion hours -- that's nearly eighty million years! Isn't science amazing?
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And for human settlement? (Score:2)
Wonderful writing by submitter (Score:3, Informative)
Really, it's not fair to blame mediocre writers for writing badly. Ideally, it is the job of the editor to keep crap off the front page. Of course, the quality of the editors/janitors at slashdot needs no more elaboration...
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It's one thing when someone uses a vague thing for a measurement, it's another when the example PERFECTLY FITS.
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Interestingly enough, it was the editors, not I, who added the part about the watt hours, which in turn comes from the NASA press release I was referencing.
Well then, allow me to formally apologize for the barb, and redirect it jointly to NASA, for saying it, and to the editors, for thinking it bore repeating.
Not to heap any more crap on the editors -- I think they do a reasonably good job considering they have people like you to contend with.
Please. They don't "contend" with me or any other user (with the possible exception of occasionally secretly mod-bombing). They sit around scratching their collective asses and once in a while apparently randomly choosing an article submission and posting it (mis-quotation, false headlines, stupidly inflammatory editorial opinions optional). They can'
Its not over till the BBW sings... (Score:3, Interesting)
When the storm ends and the dust settles and no signal is received from Spirit and Opportunity then, and only then, will I raise a glass in memory of those two incredible machines and the end of their mission.
On a side note has anyone every thought of using Tesla's energy transmitter or other "beamed" energy delivery system (microwave?) to power a planetary probe? Use a big nuke power module, keep it in geostat orbit, or land it with the transmiter, and then drop the rovers down. years of power for the rovers and it could be used by later missions as well.
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Unless they lose signal completely both rovers could, and would, continue to provide invaluable data from whatever instruments were still operating. I've worked with some of the people involved in developing the software for both rovers and I know the OS they are running on better than most of the people programming for it. I can state that both rovers are far more adaptable than the majority of people give them credit for.
In mos
Nasa dumbs it down (Score:2)
Is there a single person who might be reading a Nasa story who needed that "fact" explained?
Hard to Believe (Score:3, Interesting)
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Mars may have an atmosphere that's quite thin comparted to ours, but it's far denser than vacuum and it's PLENTY to move megatons of dust around in the form or storms.
Power loss (Score:2)
Joules (Score:2)
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Re:WHY was there no brush included? (Score:5, Informative)
A) The dust is charged (static electricity). Brushing would just shove it around and scratch the solar panels. So some other means of cleaning them would be required, e.g. charging the solar panels so it repels the charged dust?
B) What good are clean solar panels when the sky is opaque with dust? Needs more nuclear power, which is what the upcoming rover will have.
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oh you said Brush...sorry!
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A more robust system would use a radio isotope heater and not depend on battery power to run heaters. But these were designed to be within a set budget and had a short design lifespan.
I am sure that when humans go to mars a nuclear power plant will go with them to the surface.
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For a 90-day mission, you get more power and reliability by spending the mass of the cleaning system on just having larger solar panels and letting them get dusty. I guess NASA must have asked a fourth grader
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If you had read just a little bit of background .. (Score:2)
The Sojourner rover experienced a steady reduction of power due to accumulated dust, but it didn't operate long enough to have its panels "cleaned" by a dust storm. Until Spirit and Opportunity weathered their significant major storms, it wasn't known whether dust storms would increase or reduce accumulated dust.