Given that the shuttle orbits Earth something like sixteen times a day, does the concept of "year-end changeover" actually have any meaning to it? Just which timezone would be used to keep track of the date? If it's the "local" zone, then that "simple fix" had better be able to switch the date backwards and forwards every ninety minutes whenever the ship slides across the International Date Line. But if the relevant time zone is that of Mission Control, no matter where in the world that is, then it sounds as though the whole concept of date or time of day is pretty much irrelevant: surely it's only the number of seconds since takeoff that matters. And if that's the case, then it sounds as though the shuttle's software is designed perfectly: it's the ground-based systems, with their convoluted, irrelevant and incompatible "year-end changeover" functionality that are the problem...
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Given that the shuttle orbits Earth something like sixteen times a day, does the concept of "year-end changeover" actually have any meaning to it? Just which timezone would be used to keep track of the date? If it's the "local" zone, then that "simple fix" had better be able to switch the date backwards and forwards every ninety minutes whenever the ship slides across the International Date Line. But if the relevant time zone is that of Mission Control, no matter where in the world that is, then it sounds as though the whole concept of date or time of day is pretty much irrelevant: surely it's only the number of seconds since takeoff that matters. And if that's the case, then it sounds as though the shuttle's software is designed perfectly: it's the ground-based systems, with their convoluted, irrelevant and incompatible "year-end changeover" functionality that are the problem...