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Programming Error Doomed Russian Mars Probe
astroengine writes "So it turns out U.S. radars weren't to blame for the unfortunate demise of Russia's Phobos-Grunt Mars sample return mission — it was a computer programming error that doomed the probe, a government board investigating the accident has determined."
According to the Planetary Society Blog's unofficial translation and paraphrasing of the incident report, "The spacecraft computer failed when two of the chips in the electronics suffered radiation damage. (The Russians say that radiation damage is the most likely cause, but the spacecraft was still in low Earth orbit beneath the radiation belts.) Whatever triggered the chip failure, the ultimate cause was the use of non-space-qualified electronic components. When the chips failed, the on-board computer program crashed."
the ultimate cause was the use of non-space-qualified electronic components
Programming error?
Perhaps in the software used to order the parts
sure, it missed:
if(cpu_melted)
abort();
That could throw a ProcessorNotFoundException, be sure to code accordingly.
In other news, U.S. radars were not responsible for the highly confusing and contradictory summary posted this morning to a Slashdot story about Russia's Phobos-Grunt probe. A thorough investigation has determined that the story's chips should have been able to withstand the radiation received when the story was transmitted through the intertubes and routed over northern Alaska. Instead, investigators blamed a typing failure on the story editors. "A series of tests showed that the editing was lousy and sloppy, and disciplinary action will be taken on those responsible," a spokesman said.
A 4 digit ID and never heard of microcode.
Seriously Gramps, the distinction between hardware and software isn't as clear cut as it was when shit was all powered by steam.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
(I'm assuming mil spec is fine for space stuff)
You don't happen to work at the Russian Space Agency purchasing department, do you?
mod me funny
Not even the government could save money by buying something at Radio Shack.
This has nothing to do with reading TFA. It has everything to do with the summary
You just defined all of slashdot. What was your point again?
In Soviet Russia, code executes you!
Actually, that code worked perfectly!!!
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
Except no one knows for certain the computers crashed at all.
I'm quite sure that the computers crashed. Right along with the spacecraft ;-)
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people