Mars Global Surveyor Died from Single Bad Command

wattsup writes "The LA Times reports that a single wrong command sent to the wrong computer address caused a cascade of events that led to the loss of the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft last November. The command was an orientation instruction for the spacecraft's main communications antenna. The mistake caused a problem with the positioning of the solar power panels, which in turned caused one of the batteries to overheat, shutting down the solar power system and draining the batteries some 12 hours later. 'The review panel found the management team followed existing procedures in dealing with the problem, but those procedures were inadequate to catch the errors that occurred. The review also said the spacecraft's onboard fault-protection system failed to respond correctly to the errors. Instead of protecting the spacecraft, the programmed response made it worse.'"

Comments

So then

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Fuk Li, manager

Hehehe

Re:Solar panel caused battery to overheat ?

[Ambitwistor]

The article mentions that a new round of global-warming may be taking place on Mars - does this lend any credence to the theory that global warming is an unavoidable solar event? No.

There are good reasons to believe that the warming on Mars is not due to the Sun (here and here). There are even better reasons to believe that most of the warming on Earth is not due to the Sun (e.g., here and a bunch of essays here).