I would think manned missions would be slightly less prone to this type of issue. Having a person with a brain and hands next to the machinery means that minor issues that are impossible to solve from millions of miles away become trivial (ie. a connector comes loose: just put it back in, dust on the solar panel: wipe it off). It has its own set of dangers of course, but autonomous rover issues don't necessarily translate 1:1 with manned missions.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Makes me think of that one mission (I think it was to Venus?) Where the camera's lens cap happened to land so that it obstructed a soil probe. So many dumb things like that that can just totally screw up an unmanned mission

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

The issue with a manned mission to the moon is still going to be dust. Moon dust is sharp and jagged due to the complete lack of weathering.

It was actually a huge problem for the Apollo missions.

One of the major hurdles of figuring out how to do a longer lunar mission is figuring out how to handle the dust. It can completely compromise the joints and seals of a standard space suit in about a dozen hours.