Mars Exploration News  
Spirit Gets Energy Boost From Cleaner Solar Panels

NASA Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took this image using the left eye of its navigation camera during the 1,811th Martian day, or sol, of Spirit's mission on Mars (February 5, 2009). For more images and a more detailed expalanation please go here.
by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 14, 2009
A small but important uptick in electrical output from the solar panels on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit this month indicates a beneficial Martian wind has blown away some of the dust that has accumulated on the panels.

The cleaning boosts Spirit's daily energy supply by about 30 watt-hours, to about 240 watt-hours from 210 watt-hours.

The rover uses about 180 watt-hours per day for basic survival and communications, so this increase roughly doubles the amount of discretionary power for activities such as driving and using instruments. Thirty watt-hours is the amount of energy used to light a 30-watt bulb for one hour.

"We will be able to use this energy to do significantly more driving," said Colette Lohr, a rover mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Our drives have been averaging about 50 minutes, and energy has usually been the limiting factor. We may be able to increase that to drives of an hour and a half."

Spirit has driven about 9 meters (about 30 feet) since getting around a rock that temporarily blocked its progress on Jan. 31. The team's goal in coming weeks is to navigate the rover over or around a low plateau called "Home Plate" to get to an area targeted for scientific studies on the other side of Home Plate.

JPL's Jennifer Herman, a rover team engineer, found the first evidence for the new cleaning event in engineering data from the Martian day 1,812 of Spirit's mission on the Red Planet (Feb. 6, 2009) and confirmed it from the following two days' data.

Before the event, dust buildup on the solar array had reached the point where only 25 percent of sunlight hitting the array was getting past the dust to be used by the photovoltaic cells. Afterwards, that increased to 28 percent.

"It may not sound like a lot, but it is an important increase," Herman said.

The last prior cleaning event that was as beneficial as this one was in June 2007. Winds cleaned off more of the dust that time, but a dust storm in subsequent weeks undid much of the benefit.

Spirit's twin rover, Opportunity, drove 135.9 meters (446 feet) on Feb. 10. Opportunity's cumulative odometry is 14.36 kilometers (8.92 miles) since landing in January 2004, including 2.58 kilometers (1.6 miles) since climbing out of Victoria Crater on Aug. 28, 2008.

Spirit and Opportunity have been operating on Mars for more than five years in exploration missions originally planned to last for three months. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Share This Article With Planet Earth
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit
YahooMyWebYahooMyWeb GoogleGoogle FacebookFacebook



Related Links
Mars Rovers
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Martian winds help Earth's rover Spirit
Pasadena, Calif. (UPI) Feb 12, 2009
Martian wind guests have removed some dust from the U.S. space agency's Mars rover Spirit, increasing its electrical output, NASA says.









  • Nuclear Power In Space - Part 2
  • Outside View: Nuclear future in space
  • Nuclear Power In Space

  • Detailed map shows dry Moon
  • Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Is Shipped To Florida
  • Astronomers Will Train MMT Telescope On Moon During 2009 Impact
  • ISRO 2009 Exhibition Kicks Off

  • EU lays out voluntary space code
  • Iran To Launch First Manned Spaceflight By 2021
  • Iran space shot 'rudimentary': US general
  • NASA awards launch services contract

  • New Horizon Cruising For Three Years On Route To Pluto
  • NASA Honors MSU Pluto Model For Teachers
  • Flight Team Enjoys Some Mid-Cruise Time During Pluto Bound Mission
  • New Horizons Earns A Holiday

  • Surviving Jovian Doses Of Radiation
  • Underwater Clues To Alien Life
  • Hubble Catches Jupiter's Largest Moon Going To The Dark Side
  • Unmasking Europa

  • Venus Comes To Life At Wavelengths Invisible To Human Eyes
  • Venus Express Searching For Life On Earth
  • How Windy Is It On Venus
  • Measuring The Winds Of Venus

  • Radio Astronomers Detect Water Maser Emission From The Saturnian System
  • Cassini Thruster Swap Planned
  • Cassini Finds Hyrocarbon Rains May Fill Titan Lakes
  • Saturn's Crazy Christmas Tilt

  • Russia Blames Iridium
  • Satellite collision threatens space assets
  • When Satellites Collide
  • Pentagon fails to anticipate satellite collision

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2007 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement