Dust Storm |
Dust Storm |
Oct 18 2005, 05:47 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 71 Joined: 11-May 05 From: Colorado USA Member No.: 386 |
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Nov 18 2005, 08:47 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 578 Joined: 5-November 04 From: Denmark Member No.: 107 |
Indeed the dust storm is over and a fresh new cleaning event was in order
Rover update at JPL/NASA http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...tml#opportunity QUOTE Opportunity is healthy. The solar array was apparently cleaned again on sol 638. Average solar array energy is around 720 watt-hours after the cleaning event!
-------------------- "I want to make as many people as possible feel like they are part of this adventure. We are going to give everybody a sense of what exploring the surface of another world is really like"
- Steven Squyres |
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Nov 18 2005, 10:02 PM
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Dublin Correspondent Group: Admin Posts: 1799 Joined: 28-March 05 From: Celbridge, Ireland Member No.: 220 |
720 watt hours is nice and healthy, the cleaning event seems to have boosted Oppy's energy generating capacity by about 10%. Before this dust storm she was generating somewhere around 670 watt hours and the total insolation has dropped slightly so I had been expecting that she would return to around 650 watt hours when the dust cleared.
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Nov 18 2005, 10:22 PM
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#4
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Member Group: Members Posts: 713 Joined: 30-March 05 Member No.: 223 |
QUOTE (helvick @ Nov 19 2005, 12:02 AM) 720 watt hours is nice and healthy, the cleaning event seems to have boosted Oppy's energy generating capacity by about 10%. Before this dust storm she was generating somewhere around 670 watt hours and the total insolation has dropped slightly so I had been expecting that she would return to around 650 watt hours when the dust cleared. helvick, what would be your best estimate of Oppy's remaining life time, if it were limited by solar power alone ... a) without further cleaning events or assuming one or two additioanl 10% cleaning events during the remaining life time ? From your latest chart it would seem that we could expect solar power to last well into February, right ? Nirgal ... who still can't stop dreaming the Victoria dream |
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Nov 18 2005, 11:41 PM
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Dublin Correspondent Group: Admin Posts: 1799 Joined: 28-March 05 From: Celbridge, Ireland Member No.: 220 |
QUOTE (Nirgal @ Nov 18 2005, 11:22 PM) helvick, what would be your best estimate of Oppy's remaining life time, if it were limited by solar power alone ... a) without further cleaning events or assuming one or two additioanl 10% cleaning events during the remaining life time ? From your latest chart it would seem that we could expect solar power to last well into February, right ? Nirgal ... who still can't stop dreaming the Victoria dream I now think that it will be well past February, in fact I don't think that declining Solar power will be an issue at all until very close to mid winter (around the start of July 2006). She now has a very good chance of being able to generate enough power to survive for at least another martian year and a half. Other things are probably becoming more critical though but power is definitely looking very good indeed. A few weeks back I estimated that the power levels at mid winter on her second year would be around 260 Watt hours but that was based on the then current level of dust loading. This cleaning event has added about 70 watt hours of capacity at the moment and if the pattern of dust deposition between now and Sol 870 (the Sol with the lowest insolation ~ July 5 2006) follows the pattern from Sols 1 to 196 then my estimate needs to be increased by 35-40 watt hours. So I think we're now looking at a minimum of 295-300 Watt hours for a few days in mid winter. That is survivable, particularly if the planners\drivers can find some handy 10-15 degree north facing slopes to pitch out on for a week or two in the depths of winter. |
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Nov 18 2005, 11:47 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 235 Joined: 2-August 05 Member No.: 451 |
QUOTE (helvick @ Nov 18 2005, 06:41 PM) That is survivable, particularly if the planners\drivers can find some handy 10-15 degree north facing slopes to pitch out on for a week or two in the depths of winter. I had the impression that Opportunity was close to the Equator, and that we are using the term "winter" to denote the time period when Mars is near aphelion. I don't think that being pitched 10-15 degrees could help much of anything, except perhaps to allow gravity to help the dust to roll off the solar panels. |
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