I'd also include an airtight room containing emergency first aid and suit repair kits, spare suit batteries and maybe gloves and a helmet. It would be large enough for a person to strip off a spacesuit if required to conduct emergency repairs to body and / or suit. Also water and O2.
The basic trade off here is the quantity of solar panels v the quantity of batteries. More panels means faster recharge time more batteries means greater recharge capacity. If intended only for occasional use, I would include an excess of batteries over panels.
Quote from: Slarty1080 on 12/26/2018 12:27 pmThe basic trade off here is the quantity of solar panels v the quantity of batteries. More panels means faster recharge time more batteries means greater recharge capacity. If intended only for occasional use, I would include an excess of batteries over panels.An interesting perspective. Given that one of the objectives is to keep a rover alive (electronics not frozen) in a multi-month 90% dust storm, that would seem to suggest a minimum solar panel quantity. At the same time, if irregularly used, you are going to be sitting at full batteries quite often, and would want to have it be doing something useful with the excess solar power in good weather.In other threads I suggest atmospheric water collection + an ice cube machine, dumping ice into a pile in the shade of the solar panels, as a method to turn transient solar power into useful resources- lossy due to sublimation, but no hard cap on storage like something tank-limited.
I’d like to see some small 5g cell towers deployed with those distributed charging stations and some drones for advanced reconnaissance. Once you have a few small charging stations distributed around the base station, drones could cover hundreds of miles and find promising locations for rovers to follow up on. I’m guessing Elon will deploy a small starlink satellite system for ground support and relay back to earth. 5g chips will be smaller than starlink and needed for device connectivity and starlink would be for base station and larger rovers.
Saw this elsewhere, thought I'd raise it for discussion.Quote from: DaveH62 on 12/28/2018 03:54 amI’d like to see some small 5g cell towers deployed with those distributed charging stations and some drones for advanced reconnaissance. Once you have a few small charging stations distributed around the base station, drones could cover hundreds of miles and find promising locations for rovers to follow up on. I’m guessing Elon will deploy a small starlink satellite system for ground support and relay back to earth. 5g chips will be smaller than starlink and needed for device connectivity and starlink would be for base station and larger rovers.
a (Model X chassis based) rover
Pretty much this by Renova gen
I don't think roll-out PV panels would last through the first dust storm. Instead, something elevated with a way to flip and dump the dust off.
[...] You want to avoid "square peg into a round hole" situations when lives might depend on it.
Pulling together different pieces that people have mentioned: