If you plan to land on the pole, at a high altitude, you could potentially have direct line of sight to the sun 24/7 all year round. From the ground, the sun would appear to travel left to right along the horizon, making a full circle over the course of a month. You just need your solar panels pointed to the sides, not up.
However, if they aren’t directly on the pole, they could still plan their landing to be in a location that gets sunlight for 15 earth days straight, with 0 interruption. As that might be more than the necessary time period for their experiments, that’s probably perfect. And that doesn’t even require being at a high elevation.
Also, being on the pole doesn’t result in dimmer sunlight than on the equator like it would on earth. No atmosphere means the poles get the same completely unfiltered sunlight.
Look, the vast majority of lunar landers (and there have been quite a few) have used solar power, it’s the obvious choice in space.
Would it barely work, or would it always work?
If you plan to land on the pole, at a high altitude, you could potentially have direct line of sight to the sun 24/7 all year round. From the ground, the sun would appear to travel left to right along the horizon, making a full circle over the course of a month. You just need your solar panels pointed to the sides, not up.
However, if they aren’t directly on the pole, they could still plan their landing to be in a location that gets sunlight for 15 earth days straight, with 0 interruption. As that might be more than the necessary time period for their experiments, that’s probably perfect. And that doesn’t even require being at a high elevation.
Also, being on the pole doesn’t result in dimmer sunlight than on the equator like it would on earth. No atmosphere means the poles get the same completely unfiltered sunlight.
Look, the vast majority of lunar landers (and there have been quite a few) have used solar power, it’s the obvious choice in space.
Nah, solar is the obvious choice in space near the sun, and by not borking it up by landing sideways in a crater on the south pole of the moon.
Very limited scope for solar power, it don’t work after landing sideways in a crater on the south pole.
Edit: By the way, our next lunar eclipse is in 6 days, do you really think that thing would go uninterrupted, even if it did land correctly?
We are in space near the sun… And we have successfully used solar as far out as Jupiter.
Haha, no I didn’t account for lunar eclipses, but that lasts what, 2 hours?
But yeah, not falling over definitely improves the whole mission. No argument there.