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tpproberts t1_j145pef wrote

Reply to comment by JackHydrazine in This May Be NASA Insight Lander's Final Image From Mars by Buzzthejoker

The Insight project has requirements: baseline and threshold science. If those requirements are met the project has to justify an extended mission operations plan. Sometimes the extra data doesn’t add to the science. Those who claim “cleaning the solar arrays” is a missed opportunity are mistaken. The data has been collected and the teams of operations engineers are needed elsewhere.

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JackHydrazine t1_j14no2l wrote

In this case the data gathered so far in regards to the geology of Mars definitely justifies an extended mission and a budget to support it.

Another example would be the Voyager 1 and 2 probes that were launched in the late 1970s. It has provided us some great data about heliosphere and its boundary layer as well as the conditions of interstellar space.

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