NASA Loses Contact With Space Station Over Software Update

kodiaktau writes "Reports early Tuesday morning say that a software update to the International Space Station caused a communications blackout with Houston control. Remediation of the update has allowed the astronauts limited communication every 90 minutes or so. It is expected that the issue will be resolved today."

Comments

Yep

[roc97007]

Every time the offshore admins want to apply an update, I ask them "what is your contingency plan should you brick the server?" and they always answer "Call the vendor". Sigh.

Re:Yep

[roc97007]

That's a different, and probably more appropriate definition of "offshore". That also sounds like a very good procedure. I would have added "we only upgrade firmware to solve specific problems and vulnerabilities appropriate to our environment, not just because it's 'the latest'". But I'm told I'm too conservative.

Here, the admins are offshore (as in, physically on the other side of the world) but the machines are still local. They've rebadged former mainframe operators to be "hands and eyes" in case a button has to be pushed or a memory stick changed out. Of course, "hands and eyes" have had no hardware training whatsoever. I made some fuss recently when I caught one of them changing out a memory stick with the gator clip on their wrist strap dangling in the air. The response was to raise the issue as to why I still had access to the computer room? Geh.