Sand Hack Boosts Power On InSight Mars Lander
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Sand Hack Boosts Power On InSight Mars Lander
We love that part in Apollo 13 where the NASA engineers have to fit a square carbon dioxide filter in a round hole. We love basically every scene of The Martian where Mark Watney hacks together any piece of hardware he can get his hands on to survive on a hostile planet. What we love even more is watching actual NASA engineers trying out a hack and ordering the InSight lander to scoop sand on itself to increase the power from its solar panels.
InSight, which recently had its two-year mission to study the interior geology of Mars extended, has been suffering from a buildup of dust on its solar panels. This dust is only adding on to the expected power loss which occurs as the red planet approaches aphelion — the maximum distance from the Sun in its orbit. Attempts to shake the panels clear by pulsing their deployment motors were unsuccessful. Other solar-powered missions have experienced a cleaning effect from the Martian winds; however, despite seeing plenty of gusts, InSight has not seen any significant improvement.
Counterintuitively, operators instructed the lander to slowly trickle more dust and sand from its scoop close to (not on top of) one of the solar panels. As the wind blew, larger particles were carried by the breeze across the panels and bounced off the surface, carrying away some accumulated dust. While that may sound like a minuscule effect, the experiment resulted in about 30 extra watt-hours per Sol. Margins are still thin, and science instruments will still need to be disabled to conserve power. But this boost alone was enough to delay the powerdown for a few weeks.
There are so many exciting missions operating on Mars right now. Though, it’s also fun to take a look back at some of the earliest probes. And we’re always amazed at the resources NASA makes available for us to have some DIY fun.
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48 thoughts on “Sand Hack Boosts Power On InSight Mars Lander”
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Alice Lalita Heald says:
Where are the micro cleaning robots they promised?
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Alice Lalita Heald says:
Or even a super high tech CCCP rotating brush
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Leandro Heck says:
Or even a compressed air pump.
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Ren says:
“Or even a super high tech CCCP rotating brush”
So, what does the former Soviet Union have to do with it?
B^)
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aki009 says:
So maybe next time they’ll finally include the ultrasonic transducers under the solar panels….
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Winston says:
I’m sure that if there was a low mass solution to the dust problem that mars landers would have implemented it by now. Also, designed mission length is a factor and every lander/rover that has dust issues is always well beyond that. Even the upward pointing sky camera on the Perseverance rover has no way to remove dust, so there must be some overriding mass/benefit issue involved here. These people aren’t dumb.
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Dude says:
>These people aren’t dumb.
Every time they send a new rover out there, the mission plan is to operate for a few months, and then it goes extended for years. If they put so much as a brush on it, the management asks “Why?”. That’s because the management is already applying for the funding of the next rover, with the excuse that this one is not going to operate for very long so they’ll need a new one soon.
All the questions about “Why didn’t they put X on it?” are answered by, “Because they’re holding it back for the next rover.”
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Bleugh says:
ultrasonics weigh a lot, and take a lot of energy .also, go research ‘ultrasonic’ efficiency vs tempeature and air pressure :-P
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Gregg Eshelman says:
Why not a high speed electric ducted fan to blow the dust off?
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sutechshiroi says:
I imagine that intake for the duct would have to have filters so the dust does not shorten the life of the fan. The air might also be to thin for this to work reliably. Perhaps an air compressor would be better, but the air still needs to be filtered so it does not clog.
A brush at the end of the arm might be better for cleaning, but that might also pose some challenges that I’m missing.
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Rastersoft says:
I suspect that the brush, when pushing the sand in the panels, can scratch (and damage) them.
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Oliver Mattos says:
Without water, solar panels are actually very resistant to scratches.
The only usual reason to keep solar panels under a layer of protective glass is to prevent water ingress.
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bluecat57 says:
Aren’t solar cells silicon? Sand can’t scratch sand.
Am I close? I’m using very rudimentary knowledge. -
Dude says:
Yes it can.
The relative softness of the material simply affects how quickly it wears.
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Dan says:
It does seem like that would be useful in a number of circumstances not just cleaning solar panels. It could also blow dust off other sensors or tools, or interesting rocks, …
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Dave says:
Windscreen wipers would have worked.
Your welcome.-
CRJEEA says:
I know they try to save on weight and they’d have to design a brush strip that would last potentially a decade, but I still don’t know why they’ve not implemented something like that.
Perhaps height adjustable and rotating, one side with a brush, one side with a metal bar. Then they could clear larger particles before cleaning to reduce scratches. They could even diamond or ruby coat their panels for longevity’s sake.Complexity breads failure.
Maybe just add a tilting mechanism and a couple of vibration motor to the panels. Ultra simple, long lasting, power and processing efficient. Although they would need to work out the long term failure mode of the vibration on pretty much everything it was attached to.
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bluecat57 says:
And then they’d need to find someone who could figure out how to change the damn thing.
I am not looking forward to changing my wiper blades. Always some new piece in the box the you do NOT use.
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jake says:
My welcome?
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Alice Lalita Heald says:
We can put a vehicle on Mars but we don’t know how to dust it off xD Cutting edge NASA..
Can you imagine what would happen to humans living on Mars? Forgot to pack toothbrush for the next 3years :D -
Robert says:
Drive into a big rock that would jolt the dust.
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Roland says:
InSight is a stationary lander not a rover
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Bikeforever says:
Insight doesn’t have wheels.
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Garth Bock says:
Uh….. This is the Phoenix LANDER…. not one of the Rovers. It is stuck in one place.
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Garth Bock says:
Opps wrong lander…. but designed the same way. Phoenix quit working because of the CO2 snow loads on the panels supposedly caused them to break or bend out of position. It didn’t have an ice scraper….
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nic0mac says:
maybe pull that self hammering mole back up and put it on the panel struts, have it do a hammer at peak wind to try and vibrate some of the sand loose, oh wait that failed also because the martian environment just wasn’t cooperative.
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Alex Rose says:
Look up CO2 cleaning. It’s basically dry ice (sand) blasting. Plenty of CO2, just need it compressed.
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CRJEEA says:
The atmosphere on Mars is thin but there’s no reason it couldn’t be filtered and compressed. A Dyson cyclone like trap for the dust prefiltering would save a lot of filter cleaning cycles. It would be trivial to automate emptying a dust box then using some of the compressed air in reverse to clean it’s own filters off. I’d say it’s probably too complex mechanically and no doubt too heavy.
Even if they didn’t store compressed air and just used a hairdryer like fan with a nozzle, it might ingest something and get jammed. It could have a filter on the back and the fan could be reversible to clear it. Perhaps even a simple removable solid cover and a wider mesh on the front. No doubt a solid cover for the back might be preferable too. But where do you stop.
You could have a plastic cover for the pannels and hunker down in a storm. But then again it might be better to keep moving so as not to get buried. It’s pretty tricky designing anything you know you can’t just go and fix in six months.Maybe, now NASA can fly on Mars, we just need robotic engineering robots on Mars that can do servicing work and the odd spot clean.
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Dan says:
I think compressing air is fairly energy intensive, as well as the tanks and compressors usually being heavy, so it might not meet weight and power requirements.
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Ren says:
Martian Molly Maids
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MacAttack says:
I wonder how much of the problem is electrostatic attraction of the small Martian fines to the panels. That may be harder to overcome than “dirt” stuck there by gravity. Time to “reverse the shield polarity” ? :)
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CRJEEA says:
Interesting option, to use electrostatics.
Not great for anything high density, but still, fine dust can reduce efficiency a substantial amount.
Isolation for the other electronics might be an issue to consider.
I’m also wondering about magnetism as a possible solution, Mars is notorious for having a relatively high iron content in it’s rocks. A sweeper under the panel, a bit like a fish tank cleaning bar might be an interesting solution, if the rocks aren’t too magnetic.-
sobiguy says:
ahh you beat me to it.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0042207X96000164maybe a interval static pulse acting like a dust force field. wouldn’t be good at removing larger particles but, may inhibit some ending up there in the first place. while still removing finer particles from accumulating into larger ones. Power consumption could be low and only needing discharge capacitors and pump circuits. much like our joule thief’s, but way nasa-ishly designed of course. . Other than that just some kind of transparent, conductive coating on the solar panels.
My 1.5 cents
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Jon H says:
Perhaps they could fit the arm with something like those weakly radioactive electrostatic dust brushes that are sold for cleaning phonograph records.
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KantPredict says:
So, the comments about high-speed fans or compressors – look at the line that they managed to get only 30wh extra out of the panels with this technique. The power generation capabilities were extremely limited already before the dust settled on the panels. That’s why this low-impact cleaning hack was required, because it is mostly passive.
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bluecat57 says:
In other words, we love MacGyver and The A Team.
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Bleugh says:
a simple piece of fine rope attached to the side of the arm, combined with some slightly raised ‘guides’ along the panel. The arm can then drop to the guides and run along them so it runs parallel with the panels at a pre-set height, for the ‘soft’ rope to gently rub off the panels. Minimal extra weight and a great ‘last resort’ effort to brush stuff off. Materials science isn’t my thing but with -120 degree temps at the poles, and -60 possible elsewhere, combined with thin atmsophere, and weight limits, compressors, cloths and blowers are definitley OUT
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Lord Binky says:
It’s the charged dust particles that stick the worst (I’m sure there’s plenty of us who can recall some experience with) and are least likely to simply be blown off. Which is easy why it’s even an easy google for find papers that NASA have released on electrodynamic dust shields with the prototypes restoring up to 90% efficiency for lunar dust and conditions, so I’m curious what trade-off made it unsuitable for applying it here.
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Unclebone says:
MMRTG. They already solved the issue for future missions.
It is impressive watching them come up with counterintuitive solutions to the problem at hand.-
Alberto Aguilar says:
Elon Musk is hiring to MR: CLEAN for his next mission.
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Barry Cox says:
Just get another Ingenuity helicopter to hover over it and blow it away … Job done
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jonmayo says:
I bet NASA would give me a few bucks if I wiped down the rovers whenever they’re stopped in traffic.
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Dan says:
Yes, but US bucks won’t buy you anything on Mars, and NASA failed to convert currency before they went.
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Jon H says:
It’s kind of amazing that there are enough landers on Mars to have lost track of which is which.
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Garth Bock says:
That’s true. By the time scientists decide about the question of life on Mars…. It’ll be too late for us…
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Garth Bock says:
GIT… Yer assszzz to Mazzzzz….
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solipso says:
Why not to instruct that punny two-bladed helicopter they already have on the Mars to fly over those dirty pannels?
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Andrew says:
> 30 extra watt-hours per Sol
You mean 30 millipirate-ninjas.
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