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China's Mars rover appears to have stopped roving:
China's Zhurong rover landed on Mars to great local fanfare in May 2021 before it set about exploring the dusty surface.
But recent images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have shown that Zhurong has not moved for at least the last five months. And China has so far said nothing on the matter.
[...] We do know that the vehicle had been put in a state of hibernation four months earlier so that it could sleep through the harsh winter conditions in Mars' Utopia Planitia region. After that, it was expected that the rover would continue with its explorations toward the end of 2022, when the improved conditions would have allowed for the efficient powering of the rover's onboard battery.
But rather than offer an update on the condition of its rover, the Chinese space authorities have thus far failed to offer any meaningful news about Zhurong, and whether it's expected to start working again.
Speaking to the South China Morning Post on condition of anonymity, a source said last month it seemed that "most likely the sandstorms have seriously weakened Zhurong's capacity to use its solar panels to generate power."
[...] Mars is famous for its harsh sandstorms, indeed, it's this very same issue that finally prevented power generation on NASA's InSight lander, forcing the mission to end in December.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Monday February 27, @06:53AM (3 children)
I was thinking ultrasonic cleaners that vibrates the dust off.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday February 27, @07:56AM (2 children)
Hmmm. Is that a thing? Or did you just invent that?
I have a good friend who is a photographer and also works in ultrasonics and transducers. I'll have to ask him the next time I talk to him.
It seems like a good idea. You might need a puff of air to get the dust away from the surface once the ultrasonics loosens it.
My only concern is electrostatic attraction. I seem to have "microfiber" dust on this here computer quite a lot.
Which gives me another idea: I never had one, but I remember these electrostatic discharge (ionizer) things ("Zerostat gun") that you'd use with a vinyl record. You'd push a little button that would make a snap which would create a high voltage burst which would electrostatically charge both the vinyl record _and_ the dust. Now that both have a charge of the same polarity, the vinyl would repel the dust. Opposites attract, same charge repels. Should work for PV panels, as long as there's a little bit of atmosphere.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pTamok on Monday February 27, @09:46AM (1 child)
It's a hardy perennial question.
Mars dust is not like earth dust. It's more like cigarette smoke than sand grains, and the atmospheric pressure is so low that you can't just blow it off. Brushing doesn't work, because it clings to surfaces with electrostatic forces - think of packing polystyrene sticking to your fingers. Plenty of very well qualified engineers have looked at ways of keeping the solar panels on Mars landers and rovers working, and they have not come up with a process that is light-enough and effective enough to justify installation...yet.
Your everyday experience of dealing with dust on Earth doesn't translate to Mars, unfortunately.
Currently, the best solution is to 'overbuild' the panel area, so that you get enough power when the panels are covered with the expected amount of dust. Local weather removing some is a an unexpected bonus [space.com] - so much so that one of the methods tried was to trickle soil down (using the robot arm) near a solar panel and while the wind was blowing so the blown (large grain) soil would take the finer dust with it. It worked to an extent.
https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/nasa-mars-lander-dumps-dirt-on-itself-to-battle-dusty-solar-panels/ [cnet.com]
https://www.universetoday.com/151410/clever-trick-used-to-clean-off-insights-solar-panels-and-boost-its-power/ [universetoday.com]
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8959/nasas-insight-mars-lander-gets-a-power-boost/?site=insight [nasa.gov]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday February 27, @05:28PM
Interesting, thanks for all of that.
> It's more like cigarette smoke than sand grains,
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust? :) (kidding...)
That's an interesting analogy. As I wrote before, I'm well familiar with electrostatic attraction. When I was a kid I built a high voltage based electrostatic air cleaner. (really I just needed an incentive to built a high-voltage generator- who doesn't like messing with big sparks? :)
So you don't think the electrostatic ion emitter would work?
So back to the motor-driven thin plastic wrap rolls? Or you're saying overbuild is good enough?