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Comment by tectonic | Hacker News Reader

Do you have a reference for the electrically-repelling solar panels? They sound fascinating.

Not original commenter, but here are some relevant papers that should have publicly available pdfs if you search for them on Google Scholar:

Landis, G. A. (1998). Mars dust-removal technology. Journal of Propulsion and Power, 14(1), 126-128.

Kawamoto, H., & Shibata, T. (2015). Electrostatic cleaning system for removal of sand from solar panels. Journal of Electrostatics, 73, 65-70.

Saravanan, V. S., & Darvekar, S. K. (2018). Solar Photovoltaic panels cleaning methods: A Review. Int. J. Pure Appl. Math, 118, 1-17.

Reading the last names of the authors of these publications is refreshing, particularly in contrast to the often nationalistic comments that have peppered discussion of this rover.

Maybe the future is brighter than we think!

Care to elaborate why you think the comments on this rover are nationalistic? Or, do you feel the same way about comments regarding NASA or JAXA achievements?

Disclaimer: I'm a China/Chinese national.

I think they were referring to earlier nationalistic dismissals/unfounded skepticism.

I haven't been able to find any evidence supporting this claim.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/science/china-mars.html says, for example:

> Days after the touchdown, the rover will roll off the lander. Like Spirit and Opportunity, Zhurong will be powered by solar panels, which are retractable so that it can periodically shake off any accumulated dust.

I'd love to learn more.

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