It is presumed (almost certainly correctly) to be its own string - but every part of the craft should probably have been pattern-coded to make it very obvious w

It is presumed (almost certainly correctly) to be its own string - but every part of the craft should probably have been pattern-coded to make it very obvious when it found some stray part of itself; and I imagine that will happen with future missions. What's most interesting is that these events (it found some foil, too) weren't anticipated.