|But, unfortunately, Mars only allows minimum energy transfer orbits
|only every so not too often so a blown landing opportunity also costs
|you some years wait (which, of course,  is not at all what this
|thread is about :-)

Though now that the concept is validated, it should be
possible to select, say, three landing sites and send over
three spacecraft next time.  Just as cheap as sending one
super-reliable one, we'll almost certainly get at least as
much data is from the super-reliable one, and we may quite
likely get three times as much.