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SpaceX's Latest Advantage? Blowing Up Its Own Rocket, Automatically (qz.com)
SpaceX has reportedly worked with the Air Force to develop a GPS-equipped on-board computer, called the "Automatic Flight Safety System," that will safely and automatically detonate a Falcon 9 rocket in the sky if the launch threatens to go awry. Previously, an Air Force range-safety officer was required to be in place, ready to transmit a signal to detonate the rocket. Quartz reports: No other U.S. rocket has this capability yet, and it could open up new advantages for SpaceX: The U.S. Air Force is considering launches to polar orbits from Cape Canaveral, but the flight path is only viable if the rockets don't need to be tracked for range-safety reasons. That means SpaceX is the only company that could take advantage of the new corridor to space. Rockets at the Cape normally launch satellites eastward over the Atlantic into orbits roughly parallel to the equator. Launches from Florida into orbits traveling from pole to pole generally sent rockets too close to populated areas for the Air Force's liking. The new rules allow them to thread a safe path southward, past Miami and over Cuba.
SpaceX pushed for the new automated system for several reasons. One was efficacy: The on-board computer can react more quickly than human beings relying on radar data and radio transmissions to signal across miles of airspace, which gives the rocket more time to correct its course before blowing up in the event of an error. As important, the automated system means the company doesn't need to pay for the full use of the Air Force radar installations on launch day, which means SpaceX doesn't need to pay for some 160 U.S. Air Force staff to be on duty for their launches, saving the company and its customers money. Most impressively, the automated system will make it possible for SpaceX to fly multiple boosters at once in a single launch.
SpaceX pushed for the new automated system for several reasons. One was efficacy: The on-board computer can react more quickly than human beings relying on radar data and radio transmissions to signal across miles of airspace, which gives the rocket more time to correct its course before blowing up in the event of an error. As important, the automated system means the company doesn't need to pay for the full use of the Air Force radar installations on launch day, which means SpaceX doesn't need to pay for some 160 U.S. Air Force staff to be on duty for their launches, saving the company and its customers money. Most impressively, the automated system will make it possible for SpaceX to fly multiple boosters at once in a single launch.
I'm sure it's been sorted but this comes to mind:
Reports Say U.S. Drone was Hijacked by Iran Through GPS Spoofing.
(The nabbing of a drone by spoofed GPS signals)
You only like it because you don't work in the reliability field. Having a human operator in charge is one of the least reliable ways of doing things.
Then again, there are the famous Airbus incidents where software caused the plane to safely mow through a forest and crash because it knew that the pilot desperately trying to fly it was obviously wrong.
On indeed. No computer is perfect, and no system created by people is perfect. In industry we look at the differences between random failure and systematic failures. Some >80% of failures of systems are systematic and the result of human error in design, operation or maintenance. The remainder can be easily quantified and is widely considered several orders of magnitude better in performance than humans.
The point is, I don't know that I'd take the position that the human is the least reliable ways of doing things, when the humans tried to do the correct thing, but the computers insisted on their way or the highway.
I'm reminded of the usual safety pep talks: No one goes to work with the intent to injure themselves (obviously not true, but true enough). If you consider humans doing the correct thing then they are actually quite reliable. However the key reliability problem is that humans startlingly often don't do the correct thing, often due to no fault of their own. The human brain is incredibly fallible.
TL;DR - Don't be in too big a hurry to declare superior safety. Hubris always attracts Karma
Safety systems were invented for a reason and humans are only ever considered the first line of defence before automatic systems take over. I often like getting asked why I don't perform reliability calculations on emergency stop pushbuttons on critical equipment. The answer typically stops the person asking the question dead in their tracks: "Without doing a calculation I can say the reliability of the pushbutton is approximately 3 orders of magnitude higher than the brain that is tasked with making the decision to push it."