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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.
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.
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... that human error can happen even in the most expensive projects.
This signature was left intentionally blank.
I wish POLITICIANS would stop judging accidents with NASA and spaceflight in general as "wastes".
It's NOT a waste. Research REQUIRES failure. SUCESS requires failure.
One step at a time, my fellow scientists and engineers. One step at a time.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
The scientists got their samples and the public got a cool crash video
But it takes a rocket scientist to really screw things up.
They had the silly thing in reverse.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
I read the same story here earlier today, and it also says that it was installed backwards.
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
You didn't read the article very well. It says that the specs said the part should go in backwards. From the article:
The sensors, which are estimated to be less than an inch (2.5 centimetres) wide, were apparently installed in a circuit board in the wrong orientation - rotated 180 from the correct direction. But the problem stemmed not from the installation but the design, by Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Maryland.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Second (or third if ya count the dropped sattelite at Goddard about 18 months ago) screwup by Lockheed on a recent NASA project. Knowing NASA, they'll likely give LockMart a bonus for that performance ;)
Haven't we had enough stories about sensorship today?
KHAAAAANNNNN!!!!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Jonah Hex
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
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?
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
This isn't a trick question on your high school physics quiz. Just because the term deceleration is not preferred because it is ambiguous does not mean that it doesn't exist. Maybe it's *acceleration* that doesn't exist!
From Dictionary.com:
3 entries found for deceleration.
decelerate Audio pronunciation of "deceleration" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-sl-rt)
v. decelerated, decelerating, decelerates
v. tr.
1. To decrease the velocity of.
2. To slow down the rate of advancement of: measures intended to decelerate the arms buildup.
v. intr.
To decrease in velocity.
Damn Australian scientists!
;-)
You can't take the sky from me...
The mission's Mishap Investigation Board will continue to investigate the problem.
Oh, suuuure. MIB stands for "Mishap Investigation Board" now, huh? We're on to you, you governemnt spooks!
Lest I get a bunch of "What are you talking about?" responses:
a y_0410 11.html
9 91110.html
For them dropping the NOAA sat:
http://www.space.com/spacenews/businessmond
(first link I found)
Climate Orbiter:
http://www.space.com/news/mco_report-b_
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
Isn't this the same situation that resulted in the creation of Murphy's Law. They were doing acceleration tests on humans but they installed the sensors backwards so the tests were useless.
The original lesson they learned was: That if a design allows for a part to be installed incorrectly, then that part will be installed incorrectly (eventually, or maybe even the first time).
Just a little bit of history repeating.
Sheeeeezzzz...
These kind of mistakes make me wonder. WHY does NASA *HAVE* to re-design every freakin' thing on every freakin' mission from the ground up every freakin' time?
We're flying alpha-test spacecraft.
Re-usable modules anybody?? Heard of those? Standard designs? Sure, some parts are going to be different, namely the actual scientific instruments, but fer ghodssake an accelerometer?! WhyTF do we need to redesign that (its a weight, a spring and a switch, fer the love of pete) ?!!
-sigh-
-- -- The Dragon De Monsyne
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...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
But we know things like this already. Failure is fine if you learn from it.
What did we learn? Um... accelerometers only work in one direction... if you install them backwards, things don't happen right!
We tolerate mistakes if we have to make them, but this one (like all the recent Lockheed Martin screwups on work for NASA) appears to be stupidity.
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
I didn't realize that up and down were different in metric than the imperial system.
You'd think they would have figured out that the braking switch was in backwards when they saw Genesis's airbags deploy at liftoff.
3... 2... 1... *PFOOF*
Just like you should never write that code that cannot be tested (in the perfect world, every line would be executed during testing), you should never design a subassembly that cannot be tested.
It's a organizational attitude adjustment that's needed to put this into effect.
I remember reading about an Apollo moon car issue where a core-sample clamp would not work because it was installed upside down. It ended up wasting about an hour of astronaut time. Parts designers should avoid symmetrical designs where things fit, or semi-fit, if misoriented. Design them with things sticking out so that it would not fit *at all* if put in wrong.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
Don't try to use the force. Do or do not, there is no try.
Said another way, When they installed the part, they installed it with the "Up Arrow" pointing up like the directions said, but the people who designed the part had the "Up Arrow" pointing the wrong direction.
So the failure was in design, not installation. The net result still being it ended up backwards.
At least that's what I'm reading.
After that capsule crashed, I saw the following headline:
Saucer From Space Crashes In Utah Desert!
My first thought was, "what bullshit!". But then I realized it was 100% true. (Well, okay, it was kind of an obese saucer shape.)
Table-ized A.I.
We've all made mistakes like this, I think. Somehow, you just get things backwards in your head once, and then fix it as a `definite truth' which you don't bother to look at again.
Usually, I find these kinds of mistake in my own work when someone else, who hasn't been tainted in the same way, points it out to me. I wonder why this kind of peer review didn't happen here?
That's the problem. It wasn't installed wrong, it was designed wrong. The installation was exactly as it should have been.
My guess is that whoever designed that part had the head and tail of the probe itself backwards in their head.
I remember trying to put plastic containers in a field to use as markers for trees (long story) and after about 2 years had to be replaced as they had decomposed
1) Some plastics are designed to decompose.
2) Most plastics that aren't designed to decompose... don't. Instead they undergo weathering by the elements and 'vanish' as they are ground down by sun, wind, rain, and snow into plastic dust which then remains in the environment for hundreds/thousands of years. This is a worldwide problem.
This flies against all the enviromentalists saying they will stay here forever
It flies against nothing. Just because something is too small for you to see does not mean that it is 'gone'. Weathering does not equal decomposition. Choice quote from the BBC article: "...this study suggests that practically everything really is made of plastic these days - even the oceans."