Hope I'm missing something here... Why not just put a windshield wiper on the solar panels? Some kind of soft cloth and a vacuum system.
shareits not just dust covering the panels, but the dust is so thick that almost no light gets through, its like pitch black
shareThat might work, but it might not be practical.
Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar and doesn't.
A fair point, considering that different cleaning contraptions were planned for rovers and ditched because of weight issues - surely a manned mission would have a system for cleaning the panels.
shareThe dust isn't like sand as I thought it was. It's like a fine powder. Also they said the peak height of the dust clouds is 20 kilometers High. Plus the sunlight can't get through.
shareYep, so annoying. Self-cleaning solar panels were invented back in 2010, and worse they were invented with an eye toward use on Mars... so I'm also trying to figure out why these poor Martian colonists didn't have the new kit, even by 2037. And don't get me started on halogen bulbs in the greenhouse when LED lighting has also been around for years, they use a fraction of the power and output more light per square foot than anything else. This series is starting to look pretty third rate.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/420524/self-cleaning-solar-panels/
the problem with the solar panels had nothing to do with cleaning, the dust storm is so thick no light gets through. The rovers on mars right now can clean their panels
shareIt´s OBVIOUS that solar panels to be used on Mars, WILL BE self cleaning or perhaps even a more improved technology than what we know at this time.
So, FAIL (One more) on solar panel technology in this series.
It´s OBVIOUS that solar panels to be used on Mars, WILL BE self cleaning or perhaps even a more improved technology than what we know at this time.
So, FAIL (One more) on solar panel technology in this series.
The dust on mars is very fine like talcum powder it is finer than flour.
Wipers would just smear it around.
The atmosphere (air) on Mars is very thin less that 1/10 of a percent, for all practical purposes it is almost a vacuum so a vacuum cleaner would not work no air.
You could run a compressor and try to suck up enough Martian atmosphere to build up enough pressure to blow it off. or you could use various chemical process to make a gas like hydrogen or nitrogen or anything really could be used.
But the reality is solar photovoltaic panels are a lousy way to make electricity here on earth. It takes a large area to produce enough electricity to run a house. remember solar power really only works if you have enough capacity to meet peak demand. it would take a panel about 10 feet wide and 150 feet long to power the average home at peak. On Mars you have half the sunlight so it would take even more. Solar panel have a 20 year lifespan. Solar is only really useful for charging a battery bank for backup or emergency power. Solar doesn't work well when it is cloudy or dusty.
Nuclear power is really the only way to go. the latest rover "Curiosity" has a nuclear reactor for power. on Mars even an unshielded reactor would be ok as Mars is bathed in deadly levels or radiation from the Sun.
Very good point.
I guess "so far" nuclear is the way to go. Excellent.
(Sorry about double posting before.)
Trololol you know nothing about solar panels.
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Giggidy! Giggidy!
Curiosity doesn't have a nuclear reactor, it has a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which generates electrical power from the heat produced by the decay of a radioactive element. The RTG on Curiosity produces a mere 125 watts of electric power when new, and that power decreases as the isotope decays over time. Powering a human base or settlement with RTGs would probably be impractical.
A nuclear reactor is more powerful and hence more useful, but it also has problems with shielding, cooling, safety, weight, maintenance, etc.
My guess is that, by the time we get to Mars, solar panels will be very efficient, cheap, resilient, flexible, thin and lightweight. Coupled with efficient lighting, extremely-low-power electronics, etc, it won't be difficult to send enough panels to generate more power than we can use.
My thought was actually based on the Jetson's cartoon.
When I heard one of the people explain how high those storms can be, I thought ok well what if they made the solar panels capable of being raised to go higher than the storm to the point of at least catching some sunlight. Better than no light at all hitting the panels and them getting covered in dust in my mind.
And how about showing a satellite in Mars orbit capturing solar energy and sending an
energy ray down to the surface to a capturing station?
Wouldn't this have been really cool? Isn't twenty years enough to have something like this set up?