Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NASA Draws On Open Source For Shuttle Bug-Tracking

Posted by Soulskill on from the hard-to-argue-with-cheaper-and-faster dept.

thefickler writes "NASA has built a new software package to track problems with the Space Shuttle using open source tools from Mozilla. '[Alonso Vera, the lead of the Ames Human-Computer Interaction Group] wouldn't say exactly how much the new systems cost to build, but he said they were an order of magnitude cheaper than what was being used before, closer to $100,000 than the $1 million it would have cost in the past.' The Space Shuttle Endeavor launched successfully on Friday, so the new system is being used to track any problems which may crop up in the current mission. As one commentator pointed out, 'A system like this could save more than money; it could save lives.'"

27 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. They're already using it by Minwee · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bug number one with the Space Shuttle is that "Microsoft has a majority market share in space travel".

    1. Re:They're already using it by peragrin · · Score: 3, Funny

      you didn't think the shuttle columbia blew up because of foam hitting a tile did you?

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:They're already using it by PPH · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Both Columbia and Challenger failed because management overruled engineering and ordered that schedule be maintained in spite of quality concerns. Launch it now, land it now, release it now.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  2. Hopefully this is only the beginning. by Bentov · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can only hope that more of this is to come; gotta save money someplace. Better to save my by actually saving money vs. saving money by taking it away from something else.

    1. Re:Hopefully this is only the beginning. by AmberBlackCat · · Score: 2, Funny

      I can only hope when somebody files a bug for something like say, "shuttle fires unreliably under ice conditions" nobody closes the bug and sets the status to "WORKS4ME".

    2. Re:Hopefully this is only the beginning. by pnewhook · · Score: 2, Informative

      RTA - it was to replace a large number of proprietary databases spread across numerous subcontractors with a single common solution hosted locally at NASA. It saves costs and time, but not lives.

      --
      Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
    3. Re:Hopefully this is only the beginning. by EpsCylonB · · Score: 4, Funny

      I love free software but I don't think volunteer developers in an anarchist programming environment have a place in the development of a $2 billion system at the absolute pinnacle of aerospace design complexity.

      Yeah but it will fine for the space shuttle. [ducks]

    4. Re:Hopefully this is only the beginning. by khallow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I disagree. That sounds like a big lifesaver right there. At the least, it'll help catch sets of problems that are synergistic. For example, if you have some avionics issue that is sensitive to excess vibration from the SRBs, it'd be helpful to easily access the SRB problem databases and see what vibration problems they currently have. That may tip the decision from "we'll let it go for this launch since it hasn't been a problem before" to "the latest SRBs have some new problems that affect this issue, we better fix it this time to be sure."

    5. Re:Hopefully this is only the beginning. by cyclone96 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I understand your point, however this particular software is basically a system for tracking vehicle "funnies" on the ground, it's not something that is in the loop of the vehicle flight software or something used to make critical decisions. The old system is pretty dated and unwieldy to use (I've used it, I work for NASA). We're obligated to try out cheaper alternatives to custom code to see if it works for us without compromising what we are trying to do.

      Sometimes it does work for us - the Mission Control Center workstations and the onboard command and control laptops on the Space Station were all recently converted to Red Hat. It is in many ways better than the old proprietary unix solutions because with the source it's easy to do our own mods to the software. We still test the daylights out of it since that is critical software, but it's a lot easier to support since we have the source code and can do our own bug in-house bug investigations, patch it, or rip out things we don't want/need.

      --
      Worst...sig...ever!
    6. Re:Hopefully this is only the beginning. by DiegoBravo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Despite the (European) Ariane, the most tragic NASA's episodes were not directly related to software. Even with the high business software project failure rate, the software in the space ships has proved very reliable.

      I think people is biased to feel the software as a intractable mess because of the intractable requirement dynamics in business projects. BTW, never complains that the hardware can be so bad too.

  3. PHLEGM already taken... by mach1980 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The name of the system sure sounds as from a dilbert strip: "Problem Reporting Analysis and Corrective Action (PRACA)"

    --
    Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
    1. Re:PHLEGM already taken... by Yetihehe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In polish "praca" means "work". So probably it just works.

      --
      Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
    2. Re:PHLEGM already taken... by ladybugfi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well if you say in Finnish "se prakaa", you mean that it breaks. Fitting...

    3. Re:PHLEGM already taken... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

      ... which has the implications that polish astronauts will be allowed to fly in the Space Shuttle, while the Finns have to stay home?

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  4. Good Company by DynaSoar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The order of magnitude under budget sounded familiar. Jefferson Lab Accelerator made a similar statement about at least some parts of the machine when they announced they had completed building and testing it and it was ready to fire up, ahead of schedule and under budget. I remembered they used government surplus and off-the-shelf parts as much as they could, but I didn't pay attention to the software. So I looked it up. HP-UX from 1987 to 2004, Red Hat since 2004. They talk about open source as a rationale, and specifically mention the Mozilla programs: http://users.cosylab.com/~mpelko/PCaPAC08/papers/mox03.pdf

    --
    "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
    1. Re:Good Company by invisiblerhino · · Score: 5, Informative

      A lot of science uses open source tools anyway, so this is only news in that it'll draw the public's attention to it. At CERN, the data analysis package (ATHENA) I worked on had a Python front end, used gnu tools (gcc, gdb), expressly encouraged physicists to use valgrind etc. I've forgotten how bug tracking worked, but I'm pretty sure it was something like Bugzilla. I'm not sure about the status (open source or not) of the full analysis package, but other stuff to come out of CERN (CERNLIB, Geant3) has been. It's all good.

      --
      xterm -n 8
  5. Bugzilla? Really? by rfreedman · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, the rocket scientists looked at all of the available open-source bug trackers, and chose Bugzilla? Really?

    1. Re:Bugzilla? Really? by david.gilbert · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hopefully the rocket scientists were doing rocket science while leaving the IT people that support the rocket scientists to choose the bug tracker.

    2. Re:Bugzilla? Really? by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 2, Funny

      So, the rocket scientists looked at all of the available open-source bug trackers, and chose Bugzilla? Really?

      No matter which solution they choose, it certainly doesn't solve the common people related issues we see:
        - rejected, reason: space debris, this is out of scope
        - won't-fix, reason: no parts available
      I am sure there others.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  6. How is this surprising? by AndGodSed · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, open source is cheaper, AND appears to give good results?

    Why am I not surprised?

    --

    Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity

  7. It could have saved a lot of lives, actually by Avatraxiom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My company (Everything Solved), made PRACA along with NASA, and in one of the first meetings, a researcher at Ames told me that if a system like PRACA had always existed at NASA, then every major mishap in NASA's history could have been avoided. -Max

    --
    Everything Solved, High-Quality Bugzilla, Perl, and Linux Services
    1. Re:It could have saved a lot of lives, actually by khallow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I strongly doubt it. For example, the two problems that killed astronauts on the Space Shuttles were known issues to the people making the big decisions. Better issue tracking might have helped address these problems before they killed someone, but it is unlikely.

  8. Re:What were they using before... by Avatraxiom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They were using something like 40 different systems--a different one for practically each department and contractor at NASA. Some of them were pretty much using the technological equivalent of post-it notes next to their screens, and I've been told that some were keeping track of defects using paper files. -Max

    --
    Everything Solved, High-Quality Bugzilla, Perl, and Linux Services
  9. Why not publish the source online? by LingNoi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why don't they publish read only access of the source code online and allow the public to file bug reports?

    More eyeballs, shallow bugs.

    1. Re:Why not publish the source online? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I could use that bug tracker. My space shuttles keep exploding on me, and NASA support is really shitty.

    2. Re:Why not publish the source online? by JetScootr · · Score: 2, Informative
      Perhaps I was a bit snarky there...sorry.
      I work in the astronaut training facility, on simulation software. Loosely, I'd categorize the code like this:
      • simulation 'infrastructure' or 'framework' (ie,realtime game engine,graphics,network/shared memory protocols,etc) .. (Requires knowledge specific to computational hardware, i/o devices, etc of the simulator itself)
      • Model software, such as payload X or onboard system Y
        (Requires specific aerospace tech knowledge)
      • Math, like equations of motion, mass properties, ephemeris, etc. (Requires rocket scientist)
      • Non-simulation support software, such as S/W CM, bug tracking, distribution software, process mgt s/w, etc .. (Requires paperwork-procedure-specific knowledge)
      • Maybe miscelleanous, but none comes to mind right now.

      Bringing a good programmer up to speed on all this stuff takes several months. The math is the only part I'd think a good coder could analyze witout domain-specific knowledge. That was written,vetted and frozen decades ago (except ephemiris, Fischer stuff *should* get updated infrequently).

      --
      Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
  10. Testing is not enough by Dark1999 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For systems such as these formal verification is very important. NASA understands that and they have a pretty strong "Reliable Software Engineering" team: http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/rse/