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JimiWanShinobi t1_irizacp wrote

Reply to comment by Legacy-ZA in Continent-Size Dust Storm on Mars Threatens to Shorten NASA InSight Lander's Last Days by Sariel007

Compressed air would work too, there's no moisture in the air like on Earth so it's literally just dust. An air compressor with built-in lines pointed at the solar arrays could just blow the dust off, super simple solution...

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poqpoq t1_irj10wj wrote

Made a top level comment with more detail, but Martian dust is static so compressed air wouldn’t work well. Also that’s a pretty big and heavy system if you want any power.

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Strykker2 t1_irj5vpb wrote

And where are you going to get all the power that compressor needs?

A compressor alone would draw more power than the entire probe uses currently.

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JimiWanShinobi t1_irj8nra wrote

Not necessarily, a small weak one like I have in my trunk could be allowed to build up enough pressure in a storage tank over time until it's needed. Another option could be pre-loaded air cartridges, might mean a limited number of uses but it could extend the life of the system...

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Blackpaw8825 t1_irjdyet wrote

Does the one in your trunk work at 180,000 feet? We're talking under 0.1psi, your shitbox compressor isn't even going to hold a gradient at these pressures. Each bite the compressor takes contains so little air.

Couple that with lots of vibration, additional wear surfaces, a lot of extra weight, huge power demands, and the fact that same dust is going to clog the compressor or erode it away...

This simple fix just adds a lot of complexity and failure modes.

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