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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: 'Programming error' caused Russian rocket failure - Yahoo! News
From: James N Wilson
Date: 2010 Dec 7, 20:05 -0800
From: James N Wilson
Date: 2010 Dec 7, 20:05 -0800
Frank: My first spacecraft launch in 1962 was dumped into the ocean because of a software error. A missing hyphen! The software was supposed to detect an out-of-lock situation from the ground guidance system and disable commands until normal communications were established. The system had flown five times before, without a problem. But this flight had a marginal antenna (my memory doesn't remember all the details), and when communications became garbled, the guidance commands continued to be sent and acted on. The result was that the Atlas went wildly off course and had to be destroyed. The range safety officer said that he waited as long as possible before destroying the mission, so as to give us the maximum amount of data. And the spacecraft worked all the way to impact in the Atlantic. We had a second launch scheduled, and it became Mariner II, the first ever planetary encounter. The point is that "proven" software may still be susceptible to failure. Jim Wilson ____________________________________________________________ Refinance Rates at 2.7% $160,000 Mortgage $434/mo. No Hidden Fees- 3.04% APR! Get a Free Quote