Keeping Spirit's Solar Panels Clean

[scena]

I was wondering if anyone knew how the folks at JPL plan on keeping the Martian dust off of the solar panels of Spirit and Opportunity. Since the dust would degrade the solar panels ability to charge the batteries how are they kept clean? Also, with the potential for dust storms on Mars how would the rovers protect themselves if a storm whipped up in Gusev Crater? Is there some way the rover could protect it's panels and cameras?

[damienpaul]

Here is a link to an article about the panels and the rover's power source, hope it helps:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spa...ver_energy.html

[Fraser]

Great question, I'll pose this to NASA.