Yes, the debris effect on spacecraft got me worried too, as I mentioned in my reply to Rich the other day. How long will the reactor on Curiosity put out enough power to function, if and when it goes into extended-mission-mode? Is ten years a reasonable assumption, or did you just toss-out that figure? On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Seth Jarvis <SJarvis@slco.org> wrote:
What's really got me going is what impact (pun intended) this comet might have on Mars science missions if even a near-miss "only" showers Mars with a cloud of comet dust and assorted junk from the comet's coma. That could be a major problem for all those satellites orbiting Mars.
It would be a real dope-slap to all of us if Curiosity, which could have worked on Mars for a decade, was blinded or otherwise disabled by a high-speed shower of comet dust while at the same time MRO and the other orbiting Mars missions were similarly knocked out of commission.