Months are not a particularly long duration for spacecraft, and solar arrays are not at all unusual as power sources for spacecraft in the inner solar system.

Some data on satellite lifetimes:

* http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Operations/GOES/status.html

* http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/ml/life_expectancy.html

* http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/pubs/life%20expectancy.pdf (2009)

As for the protective equipment being used in that Yahoo photo, that's probably due to the use of hypergolic fuel:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergolic_propellant

Notice nearly-identical protective equipment being used in the Wikipedia entry.

As for protective equipment for radioisotope thermoelectric generators, here's an example from Cassini:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_gen...

This being the Internet, there's far more information on related topics available:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(satellite)

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._RecSat_Big_Picture.jp...

Hmmm. Wonder what other and far more familiar satellite that KH-11 Kennan looks like.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HST-SM4.jpeg