For me it seems strange that a 200Mlj Mars robot (like Insight,etc) meet the end of life becouse of dust on solar panels. Why they aren’t equiped with some kind of vibration mechanism or windshield wiper-similar thech to deal with a problem? This seems to me like WTF?
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Everything in space is about efficiency, especially around weight. The robots were designed to survive a certain amount of time and that time included knowing the panels would get covered. The engineers had to decide to come up with ways to keep the panels clear (adding weight and complexity) or calculating they would keep working “long enough” to complete the mission.
The Martian dust is unfortunately not just resting on the panels, it is clinging there due to static charge, so the rover can’t just dump the dust off.
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