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28 days agoThe lander most probably made it down in one piece. It was designed to survive an atmospheric entry on Venus and from interplanetary speeds. It almost certainly survived a reentry into Earth from a low orbit. That being said, it probably shattered in the splashdown due to the parachute not deploying.
I regularly walk through a pedestrian area that has such heating here in Helsinki. Most of the time it works, but when it gets cold enough and there’s a lot of new snow, the snow just turns into a wet slush that people walk through until it freezes into a horrible icy mess dotted with deep footprints. It’s quite a contrast to the nice and relatively even packed snow around the place at such times. Drainage is important, as is keeping the power level adequately high. Half measures will fail if the conditions get bad.
If they also plow the bulk of the snow off when it’s fresh, then it could work nicely.