The Orbital Survey mod looks pretty similar to what I want in science parts. I like the idea of mapping out the surface of each planet and exposing discoverables that way. Something like this in vanilla would give me a reason to put a satellite in a long lasting orbit.
Another thing I want to do with science parts in the future - I want to discover new bodies (dwarf planets, exoplanets, asteroids, comets) by putting a space telescope into orbit and performing a very long-running experiment. (Or maybe you unlock them by accumulating a certain amount of space telescope uptime, which also incentivizes putting more in orbit at once).
Both of these would be “infrastructure” challenges more than they are “capability” challenges, which is interesting to me.
