Improved aerosol-generating system comprising individually activatable heating elements

An aerosol-generating system comprising:

• a cartridge, the cartridge comprising:
• a heater assembly comprising at least three individually activatable heating elements arranged in an array, and
• an aerosol-forming substrate on each of the heating elements;
• and
• an aerosol-generating device configured to engage the cartridge, the aerosol-generating device comprising:
• a power supply, and
• control circuitry;
• wherein the control circuitry is configured to control a supply of power from the power supply to each of the heating elements to generate an aerosol, and wherein the control circuitry is configured to activate the heating elements in a sequence such that each heating element in the array is activated n times before any heating element in the array may be activated n+1 times, and such that, in the sequence, following an activation of a first heating element of the heating elements in the array, each subsequently activated heating element in the array is as far as possible from a most recently activated heating element in the array.