Re:‘My power’s low’: NASA’s Insight Mars lander prepares to ...
by idlewords on Wednesday December 21, 2022 @12:28PM
(#34083610)
They gave Curiosity and Perserverance a plutonium power source to avoid this issue.
My experience with "why don't they just X" for space stuff is that there's almost always a technical paper on it. This looks like a comprehensive review of different approaches to cleaning solar panels on rovers:
My experience with "why don't they just X" for space stuff is that there's almost always a technical paper on it. This looks like a comprehensive review of different approaches to cleaning solar panels on rovers:
"Cleaning Mechanisms for Solar Panels of Rovers and Other Extraterrestrial Unmanned Vehicles" https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2019-3452