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Perseverance uses an RTG (something like 100 watts of power + heat), which is heavy but extremely reliable. For an experimental helicopter that must fly around

by jffry 4y ago

Perseverance uses an RTG (something like 100 watts of power + heat), which is heavy but extremely reliable. For an experimental helicopter that must fly around, Ingenuity's mass budget is extremely tight. I don't know how they'd put something on the helicopter, and I imagine it's considered far too risky to have the rover have some way of cleaning the helicopter.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
It's a helicopter. It basically has an onboard vibrator. Park it at an angle and spin blades until you find a resonance and then leg gravity do the rest. I'm sure there's some very specific reason this "doesn't work". Or just hope the vehicle's flight envelope is wider than the "dust's ability to stick to the panel" envelope. You're gonna lose the vehicle either way so why not try it. I think part of the problem is that the kind of people who have a lot of experience solving these kinds of problems don't really have career paths that intersect with NASA so the engineers spec'ing out the vehicle don't really know with good enough levels of certainty when they can make cheap minor tweaks to the design of the vehicle that will produce some secondary positive result. And you can't go just call up the professional specialists and ask for their input because the processes involved are too bloated and would cost too much money to invoke over small secondary features so you really need that kind of expertise in house or not at all.
- aa-jv 4y ago
  Yeah, I really don't understand why they don't include a shaker motor to vibrate the particles off the panels .. I mean I can guess that its just one more part to throw at a very, very expensive BOM already, but it seems to me that there must be some resonant frequency, well known through tests already, that would shake the panels just so that they become functional again ..
  - jffry 4y ago
    I doubt they would add another part (which takes mass, space, and testing) to solve a problem that is far, far outside the scope of the helicopter's designed mission.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    My understanding is that the dust is incredibly sticky. You can't "just" vibrate it off. Even the occasional dust storm only blows some of it off. It's electrostatically attracted to the panels I think
    - aa-jv 4y ago
      That makes sense .. but I'm guessing they have to solve the problem sooner or later anyway, I don't see how a Mars colony is going to get over this problem unless of course we ship all those useful telephone dusters up there ..
- jffry 4y ago
  IIRC it _has_ shaken off dust, but it obviously can't remove all of the dust, and even a little accumulation can reduce solar panel effectiveness enough to be a problem when you're on a pretty thin margin.

by jffry 4y ago

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

It's a helicopter. It basically has an onboard vibrator. Park it at an angle and spin blades until you find a resonance and then leg gravity do the rest. I'm sure there's some very specific reason this "doesn't work". Or just hope the vehicle's flight envelope is wider than the "dust's ability to stick to the panel" envelope. You're gonna lose the vehicle either way so why not try it. I think part of the problem is that the kind of people who have a lot of experience solving these kinds of problems don't really have career paths that intersect with NASA so the engineers spec'ing out the vehicle don't really know with good enough levels of certainty when they can make cheap minor tweaks to the design of the vehicle that will produce some secondary positive result. And you can't go just call up the professional specialists and ask for their input because the processes involved are too bloated and would cost too much money to invoke over small secondary features so you really need that kind of expertise in house or not at all.

aa-jv 4y ago
Yeah, I really don't understand why they don't include a shaker motor to vibrate the particles off the panels .. I mean I can guess that its just one more part to throw at a very, very expensive BOM already, but it seems to me that there must be some resonant frequency, well known through tests already, that would shake the panels just so that they become functional again ..
- jffry 4y ago
  I doubt they would add another part (which takes mass, space, and testing) to solve a problem that is far, far outside the scope of the helicopter's designed mission.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  My understanding is that the dust is incredibly sticky. You can't "just" vibrate it off. Even the occasional dust storm only blows some of it off. It's electrostatically attracted to the panels I think
  - aa-jv 4y ago
    That makes sense .. but I'm guessing they have to solve the problem sooner or later anyway, I don't see how a Mars colony is going to get over this problem unless of course we ship all those useful telephone dusters up there ..
jffry 4y ago
IIRC it _has_ shaken off dust, but it obviously can't remove all of the dust, and even a little accumulation can reduce solar panel effectiveness enough to be a problem when you're on a pretty thin margin.