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SpaceX Launch To International Space Station Delayed For Code Tweaks
RogerRoast writes "The first private spaceship launch to the International Space Station has been delayed, possibly by at least a week, the vehicle's makers announced Monday. The commercial spaceflight company SpaceX was set to launch its Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket April 30 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida." The article quotes SpaceX lead Elon Musk's twittered explanation: "Am pushing launch back approx a week to do more testing on Dragon docking code. New date pending coordination with @NASA."
Blame it on the software... Did anyone test the software before yesterday?
I have waiting for patches to install. They always seem to take forever.
--- Math illiteracy affects 8 out of every 5 people.
When is any project ever on time? It's not like they can release beta grade software and release an automatic update to fix it later. If they mess this up, it's going to cost them and maybe, just maybe the engineers plea for proper testing has been answered (a little late though)
He's doing an absolutely fantastic job with his two post-paypal start-ups. I already have quite a few shares of Tesla, and when SpaceX goes public I'll pick up as well.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
"Last minute code tweaks" never go well.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Better they found it now and missed the deadline than went anyhow and exploded. You do not get too many second chances in space.
Cowards!!! Launch early, launch often. (Or just give the coders the honor of being test pilots. That will make those code monkeys program it real good the first time...)
I know this mission critical for SpaceX, but i hope they're not over doing it. It worries me when folks keep doing things at last minute. They had month delay, there going be growing doubt about them if they keep delaying like this. I can only hope for the best. *sigh*
updating to the latest version and rebooting? That's what vendors always tell us to do the second anything doesn't work perfectly.
Not that SpaceX is infallible - but I think it's NASA behind this requiring an insane amount of testing. They employ the Monte Carlo method of testing which basically tests every (or at least a random sample) value of each input variable and the combinations there of. I don't care who you are, but that method of testing is going to result in "issues" coming to the surface. The problem is that the issues will be extremely rare if not practically impossible. And Musk is not in a position to criticize them, since he wants their business for cargo and crew services.
Not saying this kind of testing isn't valuable, but it doesn't lend itself well to schedules.
"ISS Seriously Damaged Because That Fucking Moron Peter Forgot To Do Garbage Collection."
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Maybe they realised that porting bump mapping was not going to cut it when it went from virtual to real.
How does a statement that they're doing "more testing" turn into "fixing bugs"?
All the posts on here are all ZOMG, buuuug fixes!
The tweet and article say no such thing. And if you haven't finished your test cycle, best to delay and finish it. That's not rocket science.... or is it?
I am surprised. I don't remember very well what were the launch windows for LEO orbits, so this might not be applicable... But for GTO orbits, it was either one or two days of delay if there was a minor preparation glitch on the launcher, or something like one month if a new flight software had to be generated and qualified... Anyone knows more about this?
im sure you'd see git comments like
--removed sound-activated LED code
restored sound activation code. needed for espresso.py
--removed callbacks, class for rancilio espresso maker. please stop this.
--added pizza ordering support for dominos, stub for pizza hut
--removed food related code for pizza, chinese food, references to 'the luther'.
-- removed orbital re-entry positioning code. two can play this game
-- re-added orbital code. this is not funny. please stop.
-- added DMX512 dance-floor lighting control module, arduino support for twitter potted plant control
Good people go to bed earlier.
guess it really will be a diablo 3 launch.
Are they holding back because of the release of a new iPad is coming?
Can he just delay by one week? There are only small launch windows for Cape Canaveral launches to ISS. Does somebody know the approximate window size for a Falcon 9+Dragon launch to ISS? Also from this ISS launch schedule, there is a launch of a soyuz at may 15th so if he delays too much, he will probably have to move the launch date back by at least a month.
I wonder what the requirements are at NASA versus SpaceX concerning mission failure probabilities? Reaching a 90% chance of success is probably easy but 99.99% chance of success is much harder.
And then you could ask if NASA or SpaceX has such high requirements why didn't SpaceX plan accordingly? Are they forced to promise early launch dates to keep investors?
Life support systems require more rigorous testing than simple Monte Carlo. They generally require component testing, bounds case testing, and branch path analysis of the code so that every line of code gets hit during testing.
I've worked on two projects that qualified as life support systems; one was an MRI console for a GE Medical Systems MRI machine (back when it was still being called NMR before it was politically corrected to remove the word "Nuclear"), and the second was a blood gas analyzer. Incorrect operation of the code in either of those cases could have resulted in someone dying as a result of a doctor getting misinformation.
The amount of testing and the rigor of the testing involved in both of those projects was unbelievable. Even then, we were required to carry liability insurance out the wazoo on both projects in case we screwed up the code. There's a reason medical equipment is so expensive.
Space systems that can ram into an occupied space station, and which are intended to some day carry humans to orbit qualify as life support, even if they are being sent up with a load of supplies instead of a human crew. Monte Carlo won't cut it any more than it will for a system call fuzzer trying to find a sequence of three system calls in a row that , if they are called with precisely the right parameters, will trigger a kernel panic.
-- Terry
I hope it lifts off, stalls at a height of 6 feet, drops, KABOOM BABY!!!
Let's show those North Koreans we still still do the best fireworks in teh world.
TFA says the delay is for hardware in the loop testing, not code tweaking.
One hopes normal end-to-end testing was done long before this, but given the costs and logistics of assembling the actual hardware this final phase of testing pretty much has to wait until shortly before launch.
I'm a developer and am pretty much in the camp of "if it complies and boots, ship it", but I appreciate the need for QA. When you're shooting a missile at a fragile target keeping a crew alive 200 miles above earth just maybe before you sign off on the launch you want to finish testing. It's the low delta-v docking code they're testing apparently, but docking coupling damage has happened in the past, and that or just a failure to dock would be kind of a big deal.
Who cleans up the mess when one of these amature rockets slams into the station?
No where in Elon's Tweet or in the referenced article does it say they need to tweak the code... it says they need more time to "test" it.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
...was when God created Existence. From idea conception to final rollout, it took exactly 6 days to implement.
Since they are using Linux as the OS, there are no drivers available for the dock mechanism!!! Still waiting on a Sourceforge project to be created.
What am I missing? I thot the commercial companies were all building a "kind of" plane or space ship since they'd be re-useable. Why/when did they fall back to rockets?
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
but hey at least they had a body to bury "face down 9 edge first" since a number of times in NASAs case they didn't.
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NASAspaceflight has a much better article than TFA. Go read it, if you're interested in details and facts.
.... because SpaceX CAN'T DELIVER ??
Sorry to burst bubbles, but SpaceX has a 90% rate of FAILURE. Even the flights where they claimed success were partial failures. On the last flight, the Dragon capsule CRASH LANDED in the ocean because the re-entry system failed miserably to activate. Out of 10 flights, only ONE made it to space (although not the target orbit).
I was excited about SpaceX, we need to commercialize space and their ideas sounded like a good start. But after watching how they lie and claim success on obvious failures I'm not going to give them any slack. Space flight is not a market where "it was good enough in my book so lets call it a success" is acceptable. The company can single handily destroy the future of commercial space by being IRRESPONSIBLE. They keep claiming that they can deliver, when it is more than obvious that they can not.
kurtjmac is not going to be happy about this.