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Spacecraft Crashes Into Satellite

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the coming-or-going dept.

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "A robotic NASA spacecraft designed to rendezvous with an orbiting satellite instead crashed into its target. Unbeknownst to engineers at the time, DART's main sensor mistakenly believed it was flying away from the satellite when it was actually moving 5 feet per second toward it, investigators found."

3 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. ABC News is never the best choice by caryw · · Score: 4, Informative

    Offical NASA writeup available here: http://patriot.net/~cary/slashdot/dart_mishap.html

    Made from original PDF available here: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/148072main_DART_mishap_ove rview.pdf

    (I hate PDF's for simple text things like this)

    --
    NoFluffNews.com - Currently in development but seeking journalists and editors

  2. Re:Oddly familiar by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know what you mean - you'd have to teach him calculus before he'd understand.

    Not really. Just tell then it's the area under a curve, or the volume under a sheet. Even the most pretentious manager will be able to grasp that.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
  3. Ignorance of engineering practices by mark_jabroni · · Score: 3, Informative
    It really bothers me to hear this, as an engineer. I hate listening to the media about stuff like this, because they have absolutely no knowledge of engineering methods, and they don't seem care.

    Anyway, on a big scary program, here's how these sorts of problems are spotted :

    1. Mid or low-level engineers spot potential problems
    2. They then tell engineering leadership that they are worried about a particular problem.
    3. Engineering leadership and/or management then (either informally or through a process called "risk managment") decides whether or not the problem should be addressed.

    Step #3 is about as important as step #1, because you absolutely cannot fix every problem. There's neither the time, nor the money.

    Something else to keep in mind : if I spotted a problem that would surely doom my project, and can't get engineering leadership/management to agree with me, I should share some of the blame.