Slashdot Mirror
Schiaparelli Mars Probe's Parachute 'Jettisoned Too Early', Whereabouts Still Unknown (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Europe's Schiaparelli lander did not behave as expected as it headed down to the surface of Mars on Wednesday. Telemetry data recovered from the probe during its descent indicates that its parachute was jettisoned too early. The rockets it was supposed to use to bring itself to a standstill just above the ground also appeared to fire for too short a time. The European Space Agency (Esa) has not yet conceded that the lander crashed but the mood is not positive. Experts will continue to analyse the data and they may also try to call out to Schiaparelli in the blind hope that it is actually sitting on the Red Planet intact. In addition, the Americans will use one of their satellites at Mars to image the targeted landing zone to see if they can detect any hardware. Although, the chances are slim because the probe is small. For the moment, all Esa has to work with is the relatively large volume of engineering data Schiaparelli managed to transmit back to the "mothership" that dropped it off at Mars - the Trace Gas Orbiter.
. . .there were two failures: the parachute release and the burn length. But both were likely set in the software on the lander, so I suspect parameters got borked somehow.
Additionally, if the burn was shorter than planned, that would put significantly more fuel on board when the catastropic 'landing' occured. Which, depending on the propellant, could have caused an explosion at the crash site. That would likely scatter the remains, but should leave a notable mark on the soil. . .
Yeah, I do this all the time in Kerbal Space Program. From my experience, they just need to make sure the parachute icons aren't red or yellow when they deploy them. It always sucks to go through a whole mission only to mess up your landing and waste everything. I suggest they revert to launch and try again.
Isn't this essentially what happened to Mars Polar Lander? Incorrect sensory interpretation leading to the computer taking the wrong actions, thinking it was on the ground when it wasn't?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Hey, everyone "jettisons too early" once in a while.
Billions of dollars spent on hardware, and some fuckup software dude sends the whole thing crashing to the ground
The proximal cause of failure is unknown at this time. There are people smarter and harder working than you working on it.
This pisses me off.
Oh well then I'm sure they'll care more now that you are "pissed off".
Someone should go to jail for a very long time as soon as we figure out exactly what was screwed up.
Ok asshole... For what crime exactly? What law was broken that justifies jail time? How about you tell that to them in person Mr. Anonymous Coward. Actually never mind since you aren't brave enough to put your name to your idiotic rant. Grow up you pathetic twit.
I was very disappointed and angry at the ESA Press Conference this morning. Last night when they suspected (knew) [There is no way this landing was designed to not return a success signal immediately] the Lander had crashed they silenced everyone and announced a press conference at 10 AM the next morning.
At the Press Conference they emphasised the success of the orbiter and mentioned NOTHING at all about data from the lander. They left that all to questions from the Press. Basically all questions from the Press were about the lander and the data (and they were good questions - no stupid questions came), and they drip fed a piece of info at a time to the journalists.
I believe the suits at ESA were in damage control because they are scared about losing funding for the 2020 lander so they mentioned NOTHING about the crashed lander, so that when politicians check on the press releases/conferences in months to come there is NO info on the crash, but in a few days the world will know anyway, especially if NASA gets a photo of the impact and debris.
They did not make any statements at all (e.g. yes we got data from the Lander, the rockets fired for only 3-4 seconds, something went wrong with the parachute and we suspect a very hard landing) in a controlled and orderly way, they forced the journalists to extract it from them relunctantly.
I was super disappointed about scientists playing politics and covering up what they obviously knew the audience wanted to know. It was sickening.
And, yes, I live in Europe and yes, I want my tax Euros to fund the 2020 Lander, but I'm angry at scientists playing politics and ignoring the audience who wanted to know what happened last night and they deliberately said nothing.
Real engineers go to jail when they fuck up.
People who pretend to be engineers go to jail. Did you actually read your link? It's nothing but people with forged documents and other fraudulent acts. Nothing about sending people to jail for honest errors where nobody died.
Maybe a little accountability for you "coding is an art" folks would be a good thing?
If someone is willing to pay for the proper quality control structures then fine. Most software engineering quality control is severely budget limited. There are folks out there who know how to write incredibly robust software but doing that isn't cheap and it isn't merely a matter of throwing money at the problem either. It's not a secret how to do it but it isn't cheap and it isn't easy. If you want people to do a better job then you need to give them the resources and organizational structure necessary to make it happen.
Answer this. Would you do a job where you could go to jail for making a error in a calculation? Especially if no one was injured?
Only thing crazier, would be to put balloons around a lander and let it bounce to a landing. Could you even imaging such a thing?
Ahh yes, Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity :-)
So the emergency lithobraking maneuver didn't do the trick then. This sucks. Really.