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Dust Storm- Opportunity EOM, the end of the beginning of a new era in robotic spaceflight
djellison
post Jun 5 2018, 03:05 PM
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Expect a quiet few sols - http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~lemmon/mars-tau-b.html
SOL TAU
5097 0.65
5098 0.64
5099 0.67
5100 0.64
5101 0.60
5102 0.60
5103 0.61
5104 1.55
5105 ****
5106 2.12

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nprev
post Jun 9 2018, 06:38 AM
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Breaking news: As Mars nears one of its closest perihelion passes, a large dust storm has developed. Per the press release, the storm now covers a surface area the size of North America. It may possibly grow into a global storm as has happened during previous close perihelion years (notably 1971, which coincided with Mariner 9's arrival).

Needless to say, this will produce highly challenging conditions for Oppy, and the mission team is making survival preparations. Science operations have been suspended at this time.

We wish the team the very best of luck, and GO OPPORTUNITY!!!!! wheel.gif wheel.gif wheel.gif


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Sean
post Jun 9 2018, 11:17 AM
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Oh god.


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fredk
post Jun 9 2018, 02:17 PM
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Some details of the storm activity at the MRO MARCI Weekly Weather Reports site. That's only updated weekly, on Wednesdays.
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James Sorenson
post Jun 9 2018, 06:44 PM
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Good luck to Opportunity and to the very talented team that has brought her through obstacle after obstacle after all these wonderful and fascinating years. She will prevail with the Sun gleaming off her dust-free camera lenses and solar cells after this passes. GO OPPY!! wheel.gif wheel.gif
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Explorer1
post Jun 9 2018, 07:18 PM
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Given the length of the mission, it was only a matter of time until another dust storm showed up; hopefully it won't be global or very long lasting!
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marsophile
post Jun 10 2018, 12:46 AM
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Once the dust storm per se abates, there may be a period while dust settles out of the atmosphere. I wonder if there might be some advantage at that point to positioning the rover on a slope so that it minimizes the catchment area that is presented to the falling dust. If this conflicts with maximizing the sun exposure of the solar panels, perhaps it could be done at night.
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Phil Stooke
post Jun 10 2018, 08:21 PM
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"I wonder if there might be some advantage at that point to positioning the rover on a slope"

The rover is already on about as steep a slope as it can easily manage. But pondering the geometry, to reduce the projected area of the panel to 50% you would need a slope of 60 degrees, completely impossible. The allowable slopes are only going to cut dust deposition by a small amount. We'll have to rely on wind gusts.

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djellison
post Jun 10 2018, 09:03 PM
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When you have skies this dusty - the single best strategy is to be flat. You're getting your power from the diffuse glow of the whole sky.....anything other than flat hurts you.
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centsworth_II
post Jun 10 2018, 09:21 PM
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Also, with panels flat, a gust of wind from any direction will blow off dust.
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djellison
post Jun 10 2018, 09:34 PM
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Moreover - it's not dust 'fall' that hits the arrays - it's just blowing around and sometimes you get some. Tilting at a large angle may actually put your arrays facing upwind and cause more harm than good.
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pioneer
post Jun 10 2018, 10:07 PM
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Will Opportunity get a chance to send back images from the surface during the dust storm?
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djellison
post Jun 10 2018, 10:13 PM
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Other than taking occasional tau measurements of the sun - no - there simply is not enough power to do so.

If you look at the MER raw image page and PanCam tracking database - you'll see the only imaging attempted since Sol 2107 has been tau measurements of one sort or another.
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ngunn
post Jun 10 2018, 10:29 PM
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I wonder how much tilt you need to shake some dust off by jiggling around a bit. Anything worth trying there?
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djellison
post Jun 10 2018, 10:38 PM
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The sort of slope that represents a threat to vehicle safety can cause some kinds of coarse dust, bordering on sand, to rattle down the rover deck.

This is all academic - we don't know how long this storm will last, nor what state the vehicle will be in when it ends. We may find we come out of it with hundreds of watt hour to burn.

Remember - dust on the arrays is not the problem right now. It's dust in the atmosphere. A brand new rover with clean arrays would also be in trouble right now. We went into this with a pretty clean rover. A dust factor of 0.772 ( see https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/mission/statu...tml#opportunity ) is remarkably clean.
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