**8. Conclusions and lessons learned**

For robotic spacecraft to complete their goals successfully without significant risk or degradation to mission objectives, preventative measures for instruments and subsystems must be implemented by way of a robust FP strategy and onboard FSW flexibility. Prelaunch analyses and tests conducted to preclude problems do not always safeguard against human error, the flight environment, or design oversights, nor can they capture all fault cases. Mission planners must acknowledge that unknown problems can still surface after launch. During the Cassini-Huygens mission, this was proven true by the need for several new FP routines, FSW updates, and FSW patches required to resolved unexpected problems not anticipated by prelaunch designers. For interplanetary spacecraft like Cassini, these fixes were made more manageable given that significant time was available during the cruise phase to augment the FP and patch FSW in order to address these unforeseen problems, due to the flexibility that designers built into the FSW architecture.
