Part of this is just necessary for ability to learn for future missions. If something fails in space, you want to be able to figure out what happened so that you don't make the same mistake the next time. And you don't have a chance to send a second mission just to "replicate" the problem.
So you do things like build your test equipment into the probe so you can measure stuff while in operation. Or maybe make sure you have a switch for everything so that you can turn something on or off to see if the problem persists.