Clinton Huxley wrote:They'd be up against weight restrictions. Add a gas thruster, lose an instrument.
Yes, very possibly. But I'm talking about a teeny tiny gas thruster. That's all you would need, in near zero gravity.
And even though this lander isn't very big, the whole craft is actually quite a substantial bit of kit, So a few extra grams on the lander wouldn't necessarily be crucial.
I would think though, when this was being designed, they probably didn't really give it too much chance of making a safe landing, so they were being conservative with the design, and that's quite understandable.
Right now though, they are probably wishing that they'd added a bit more kit.