| Months are not a particularly long duration for spacecraft, and solar arrays are not at all unusual as power sources for spacecraft in the inner solar system. Some data on satellite lifetimes: * http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Operations/GOES/status.html * http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/ml/life_expectancy.html * http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/pubs/life%20expectancy.pdf (2009) As for the protective equipment being used in that Yahoo photo, that's probably due to the use of hypergolic fuel: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergolic_propellant Notice nearly-identical protective equipment being used in the Wikipedia entry. As for protective equipment for radioisotope thermoelectric generators, here's an example from Cassini: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_gen... This being the Internet, there's far more information on related topics available: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(satellite) * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._RecSat_Big_Picture.jp... Hmmm. Wonder what other and far more familiar satellite that KH-11 Kennan looks like. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HST-SM4.jpeg |
