Ingenuity in close-up after two years on Mars
Click for original image, with more information about it here.
With the Mars rover Perseverance now only about seventy-five feet away from the helicopter Ingenuity, the closest the two robots have been on Mars since Ingenuity was deployed in April 2021, the science team used Perseverance’s high resolution camera to take a new close up of the helicopter.
That picture, reduced and sharpened to post here, is to the right. From the caption:
Small diodes (visible more clearly in this image of helicopter) appear as small protrusions on the top of the helicopter’s solar panel. The panel and the two 4-foot (1.2-meter) counter-rotating rotors have accumulated a fine coating of dust. The metalized insulating film covering the exterior of the helicopter’s fuselage appears to be intact. Ingenuity’s color, 13-megapixel, horizon-facing terrain camera can be seen at the center-bottom of the fuselage.
This close-up is important to determine the overall state of the helicopter after two years on Mars. The engineering team that operates it does not know how much longer Ingenuity can last, so any data on its condition is extremely helpful.
That fine coat of dust on the panel and the rotors tells us that even flight and fast-rotating motion is not enough to keep such things clean on Mars. Thus we learn that there is likely no quick solution to the accumulation of dust on solar panels on Mars.
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Click for original image, with more information about it here.
With the Mars rover Perseverance now only about seventy-five feet away from the helicopter Ingenuity, the closest the two robots have been on Mars since Ingenuity was deployed in April 2021, the science team used Perseverance’s high resolution camera to take a new close up of the helicopter.
That picture, reduced and sharpened to post here, is to the right. From the caption:
Small diodes (visible more clearly in this image of helicopter) appear as small protrusions on the top of the helicopter’s solar panel. The panel and the two 4-foot (1.2-meter) counter-rotating rotors have accumulated a fine coating of dust. The metalized insulating film covering the exterior of the helicopter’s fuselage appears to be intact. Ingenuity’s color, 13-megapixel, horizon-facing terrain camera can be seen at the center-bottom of the fuselage.
This close-up is important to determine the overall state of the helicopter after two years on Mars. The engineering team that operates it does not know how much longer Ingenuity can last, so any data on its condition is extremely helpful.
That fine coat of dust on the panel and the rotors tells us that even flight and fast-rotating motion is not enough to keep such things clean on Mars. Thus we learn that there is likely no quick solution to the accumulation of dust on solar panels on Mars.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
How about a teenager with a wet cloth looking to make a buck?
Robert noted: “That fine coat of dust on the panel and the rotors tells us that even flight and fast-rotating motion is not enough to keep such things clean on Mars. Thus we learn that there is likely no quick solution to the accumulation of dust on solar panels on Mars.”
Well, there go a bunch of dreams for solving that problem. But, maybe we can reduce the accumulation and extend the lifetime of some of our robots by a couple of years or so.
I wonder if the motion could cause static charges that cause fine dust to accumulate and stay as long as there is a charge? just wondering.
If we can’t find any teenagers with squeegees on Mars, we could settle for a rotating brush, as one of the tools on the arm and an epoxy or similar coating, over the cells so we don’t rip them up with said rotating brush. Or just wait a while until we are importing said teenagers to Mars with a Starship.
Gealon,
Dust removal isn’t part of the design because a failed mission is soon followed by a similar mission design, ensuring continued employment for the makers of this iterative replacement.
Think Ariane 6. Ariane 5 with a couple upgrades.
European countries shuffle money amongst themselves based on their proportional contributions. And their expected proportional ‘distributions’.
They’ll never recoup their costs because they’ll never again have significant market share for some kind to come..
ArianeSpace may survive as asteroid miners.