This type of arrogant, aggressive ignorance is really the worst part of HN. How many successful space probes have you designed? How much weight would the solution add, and what trade-offs would that impose on other mission parameters?

NASA is by no means perfect. But we can start by assuming they have basic competence and positive intent unless proven otherwise.

I'm not doubting their competence, they're the best of the best IMHO. But sometimes politics and economics overshadows the work.

Hey nradov after sleeping on it, I agree with you, I don't like the tone of my original comment. Probably every engineering team at NASA who was part of Insight had a say in whether to invest an ounce in a dust cleaner or another sensor, and they went with the sensor. Who are we armchair warriors to dismiss that process?

That said, I also realized that a motorcycle helmet tear off plastic film and some rubber bands held stretched by fusible links would solve the problem just fine and at least double the life of the mission for negligible weight. It may not be glamorous or even guaranteed to be environmentally friendly, but it would work. Kind of like the old joke about NASA spending millions to design a space pen when the Soviets just used a pencil.

So I'm afraid that there's still no way I can accept that the engineering isn't feasible. It just sets off my code smell detector too much. Planned obsolescence is perhaps a bit too strong of an accusation though, so I'm sorry for saying that.

Yeah. I don't doubt the skill of the NASA engineering team. They could definitely solve this problem if they were asked to design the power system to last longer.