Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

EpiicPenguin t1_j1tyvq8 wrote

Reply to comment by skucera in Meet the amateur astronomer who found a lost NASA satellite by jarvedttudd

> and have some of the most sophisticated failure analysis and prevention tools in the world, which contributes to extended longevity.

Which is why it still boggles my mind that they didn’t add a brush tool to clean off the solar panels on insight lander. They were literally willing to drop rocks on the panels durring the mission, but adding a 5$ brush to the arm thats already on the billion dollar martian lander, apparently thats not an option.

1

UseApasswordManager t1_j1ud9so wrote

That wiper is also going to fail someday, and they figure you get more life out of x kg of extra solar panels than they would from an x kg wiper arm

1

skucera t1_j1uo7w2 wrote

On all prior Mars landers, NASA has relied on Martian wind to clean off the solar panels. That worked fine here, as the lander was active for over twice its planned mission.

1