For those that don't click on the image, there is a hole in the rover where a screw would normally be found. Does anyone here know if this is intentional?
It looks like someone forgot the locktite. The rover must have experienced lots of vibration on its long voyage, anything that wasn't secured properly could have vibrated loose.
Vibration is a pretty weird thing, the forces can be enormous with very little visible effect until something suddenly breaks or pops loose.
When I worked in satellite design we never used loctite because of outgassing. Washer thickness and diameter as well as torque was calculated for every screw and bolt. At the assembly at least two people were involved, one would use a digital precision torque wrench to apply the calculated nominal torque, another one would document the applied torque besides part number, date, time, etc. in a report. Assembly in aerospace is a bureaucratic process.
"The quartz camera windows were covered by lens caps which popped off after descent. Venera 14, however, ended up measuring the compressibility of the lens cap, which landed right where the probe was to measure the soil."
This is one of the things I remember reading recently that got me really excited about 3D printing. Along with all the cool uses for consumers, it could be revolutionary for space travel. For instance, if a screw(/driver) was missing in space, they could in theory "just print one out."
