Probe Crash Due to Misdesigned Deceleration Sensor

squirrelhack writes "Seems as though the Genesis spacecraft was able to launch from earth, travel through space, avoid aliens, and cruise back into the atmosphere to be caught by stunt pilots waiting patiently with their helicopters. Alas, the brakes didn't work because a sensor was designed upside down.

Comments

There is a bright side

[AKAImBatman]

Look on the bright side. The craft was not a complete loss, and it was the first probe to successfully test the Interplanetary Superhighway. (Article with pictures) Now that we know the IPSHwy works, we have the capability to launch cargo ANYWHERE in the solar system.

The primary limitation is the maximum weight we can get to the Earth/Moon Lagrange points. Once at the L-points, the cargo pretty much travels one gravity slingshot to the next with nearly no fuel expenditure. This could be a massive boon for sending Interplanetary mission cargo, especially when staging manned missions!

The only down side is that the IPSHwy is simply too slow for manned travel. Not too bad of a tradeoff, however, when you consider the amount of mass that can be more easily staged at Mars in advance! It's certainly reasonable that we could have a complete microsat network at Mars before a human ever sets foot there. Services that could be provided include:

- Mars GPS system
- Deep Space Network Uplink
- Satellite Radio Communicators for landing teams
- Detailed mapping and emergency surveillance of problem areas

In short, we could have a complete technological infrastructure on Mars before we risk anyone's life going there. It wouldn't have to be like the moon mission. We could go to stay.

Re:There is a bright side

[DigitalRaptor]

In conjunction with a Space Elevator this would be a great way to get rid of our radioactive waste.

Fill a large container with radioactive waste, send it up the elevator, tow / launch it to the nearest lagrange point, and send it down the superhighway.

When it gets to it's exit, thrusters fire and it flies directly into the sun. No more radioactive waste.

Re:There is a bright side

[Shadow Wrought]

I know you're joking but in college (COLLEGE!) I had arguments with folks along those lines. They thought it was idiocy to destroy the Sun with our nuclear waste since we depended on the Sun for our lives. Explaining things like size, heat, and other such things went completely over their heads

I wonder though if that technique of solidly encasing nuclear waste posted not to long ago might work as a means of jettisoning waste into the Sun?

Blame game...

[Jonah Hex]

But the problem stemmed not from the installation but the design, by Lockheed Martin

So what kind of trouble is LM going to get into over this one, like most big money contracts I'm sure there is some kind of penalty for such a screwup. I'm not talking about firing the engineer or some Q&A folks, I'm talking about money returned to NASA.

Jonah Hex

Why does Lockheed Martin continue to get NASA work

[handorf]

Seriously. Correct me if I'm wrong, but THEY're the ones who:
Thought we still use Imperial for SPACE WORK (Mars Climate Orbiter IIRC?)
Recently dropped a sat because it wasn't bolted down when they moved it.
Now this.

Can I get like a billion dollars to fail repeatedly? PLEASE?

Re:wtf

[Ford Prefect]

They installed the switch backwards.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the origins of Murphy's Law. I recall that too was the result of some sensors being installed backwards...

Re:It seems ...

[lukewarmfusion]

Have you ever made a mistake that hurt so much you knew you'd never make that mistake again? And when it came around next time, you made so much effort to not make that mistake that you ended up making a completely different mistake?

Mistakes happen, as you say. As is commonly accepted my many software developers, software has bugs.

The parent notes that mistakes happen in even the most expensive projects. I think it's more likely to happen in complex (and therefore expensive) projects.

Redundant logic

[Scorillo47]

A while back, one of the main things I admired NASA for was the redundant design concept. You just have a backup path for everything.

But recently it looks like they kind of dropped this concept, at least partially. Probably as a cost-cutting measure. The success of the whole mission now depends on the reliability of several single components, like the sensor in discussion.

BTW, did you know that a Mars Rover has a single CPU that carries out all the computation? I found this puzzling. Today, you add redundance in every piece of equipment - even in web blades.