Can a Carbon Dioxide Vent on a Mars Rover Solve Dust Buildup on Solar Panels?

AI Thread Summary
Dust accumulation on solar panels is a significant issue for Mars rovers, often requiring reliance on unpredictable "cleaning events" from Martian winds. A proposed solution involves using a carbon-dioxide vent on the rover's robotic arm to blow dust off the panels, but concerns about the weight, complexity, and effectiveness of such a system arise. The low density of the Martian atmosphere would necessitate a high-performance device, potentially making it impractical compared to simply adding more solar panels. Previous missions, like Curiosity, opted for nuclear power partly due to the dust problem, indicating that alternative cleaning methods may have been considered and rejected. Innovative ideas, such as integrating solar panels onto rotor blades, were also discussed as potential solutions to keep them clean.
roineust
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i'v googled the subject and it seems like a serious problem, e.g. the dust accumulating on the solar panels, there has even been a term coined 'cleaning event' for Mars winds, as if this is a matter of luck to get the solar panels cleaned. A small carbon-dioxide vent on the tip of the rover robotic arm? da? Would it be such a weight increase, for resolving such a dramatic problem? OK, these are much smarter people than me..what am i missing?
 
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roineust said:
A small carbon-dioxide vent on the tip of the rover robotic arm
What's the vent supposed to be doing, exactly?
 
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Jump to 3:45
 
Do you mean to say 'a mechanical fan pushing Martian atmosphere around to blow off the dust'?
 
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Yes, fan carried by the rover's robotic arm, pushing atmosphere selectively at an angle and force that takes the dust off the panels, without hitting the surface dust.
 
Then consider the availability of the working medium for the fan. The density of air is 1/60 of that on Earth. You'd need some really high-performance (large and heavy + energy consuming) device to have any hope of blowing anything off the panels.
 
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Pressurizing into a small bottle and then releasing? Maybe a slower process than using Earth air, but still hours if not minutes duration, not so? Would it add so much to the overall weight, if compression will be used and not a fan?
 
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In the case of a pressurised supply of gas (or e.g. mechanical wipers), my guess would be it just doesn't warrant the extra weight and complexity, where you can instead just add some extra panels for the same weight, and get a similar, but more reliable (due to simplicity), power performance extension.
 
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Yes, although i speculate that such a system could be developed to weight under 500 grams and would not be the most complex system on board such a rover, which weighs 180 kg in the case of Opportunity and 900 kg for the Curiosity. It is most likely that such a system and many other alternatives for cleaning the solar panels, were considered and rejected for the Opportunity.
Apparently the dust problem was among the reasons they did not use solar panels, on board the Curiosity (not even as a backup system?): https://www.technologyreview.com/s/428751/nuclear-generator-powers-curiosity-mars-mission/
 
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I've heard they went over the engineering process for MER in Roving Mars (the book), including considerations of panel cleaning. It might be of interest to you.
 
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Thanks, i'll look into it.
 
  • #13
Nice idea.
 
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