On 9/21/13 6:40 PM, Hal Murray wrote:
[email protected] said:
If it gets cold enough (without power from solar cells, it won't generate
enough internal heat to keep warm), it will die. That's probably what
happened to Spirit on Mars. It got cold enough during the Martian winter,
and with not enough solar power, enough things drifted cold enough that we
couldn't get commands in.
What stops working when things get cold?
Lots of things. Mars gets *really cold* in the winter (-50C and lower)
There's an issue with plastic packages where it gets brittle. CTE
mismatches cause cracks, etc. Electrolytic capacitors freeze.
On Mars, the solar cells are pointed in the right direction. Why doesn't it
recover when the sun comes back in the Spring?
for Spirit, because of the issues with the wheel drive motors, it
couldn't get into the right position to face the sun (on a south facing
hillside, basically)
That 10-20 degrees makes a big difference because of the cosine (angle)
problem/
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