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KetamineAstronaut t1_jc5qa5s wrote

Dr. Becky Smethurst had a good explanation, it's basically weight cost and complexity issues, but the sparknotes version was:

Can't have air compression cause of weight, can't have wipers due to the coarse nature of Mars dust would damage the panels.

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LiveComfortable3228 OP t1_jc5r5do wrote

yeah that makes sense. We're used to "earth dust" which is mostly organic particles. Lunar dust (and I'm guessing Mars dust as well) was super abrasive so "dusting" would really scratch your solar panels.

Another seemingly simple but really complicated space issue!

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