I participated in NASA’s International Space Apps, Exploring Venus Challenge, working on a team with 6 others across the globe to develop an energy storage system that will power a surface lander or rover on the surface of Venus for at least 60 days so that there is a viable energy storage capability for long-duration exploration missions.
The idea behind this design would be to use the gravitational potential energy slowly generated by the mass would transfer into electric potential energy that is then sent to the rover. However, we would need 3 or 4 of these and they require to be reset every time, hence why I thought maybe we could attach them to a shaft and use the green magnetic bar to produce torque to reset them each time. This device was initially used to power a simple lamp (Layton, 2021), however, I wanted to apply it to Venus.
This device would be ideal as it requires no maintenance, generates renewable energy that is consistent, and could infinitely power the rover. Didn’t end up going for this because the mass would have to be significant, up to 2 tons for each one, just to generate enough energy for a light bulb or 40W each rotation, not only making it impossible to transport to Venus itself but also the shaft of the device and the magnetic force of the green bar would have to be significantly strong, withstanding the weight of a T-Rex placed on it.
Recollecting my Project 1, I remember researching Darrius or VAWT wind turbines, specifically their small size, and thought it could be a good idea as a renewable source of energy that is readily available on Venus as the windspeeds go up to 224mph, or 360 km/h, which is as fast as 3 cheetahs. However, the downside of this is finding the precise material that can withstand these wind speeds without being detrimental to the power efficiency while still being stiff, all the while withstanding the pressure and temperature of Venus. This prototype isn’t completely out of the question, just needs some fine-tuning.