I would reasonably expect an increase in expected life / flights of a future model for sure but it will be highly dependent on what’s being tested. NASA aren’t making tools, they’re making instruments, if that makes sense. They aren’t producing a rugged tool for accomplishing a mission that someone buys to use, they’re making scientific equipment that carry out experiments and collect specific data. Even the instruments themselves are experiments, such as the durability of joint designs on the collection arms, or the roter materials selected all have a purpose and associated datapoint.
All that to say, the expected lifespan / flights on the next model will reflect the mission goals and budget / cost of the project and not necessarily an accurate expectation of the system. More or less “we designed this instrument to deliver x amount of data” not “we designed this tool to survive y number of uses”.
Fair enough. In that case the next copter they send to mars should have something like a 150 flight estimate if this one did over 400.
I would reasonably expect an increase in expected life / flights of a future model for sure but it will be highly dependent on what’s being tested. NASA aren’t making tools, they’re making instruments, if that makes sense. They aren’t producing a rugged tool for accomplishing a mission that someone buys to use, they’re making scientific equipment that carry out experiments and collect specific data. Even the instruments themselves are experiments, such as the durability of joint designs on the collection arms, or the roter materials selected all have a purpose and associated datapoint.
All that to say, the expected lifespan / flights on the next model will reflect the mission goals and budget / cost of the project and not necessarily an accurate expectation of the system. More or less “we designed this instrument to deliver x amount of data” not “we designed this tool to survive y number of uses”.