Cassini Geyser-Tasting a Bust 95
Maggie McKee writes "The Cassini spacecraft flew into the icy geysers erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wednesday in an attempt to figure out what they were made of, but a glitch prevented the probe from actually 'tasting' the plumes. An 'unexplained software hiccup' put the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) out of commission. Ironically, new software designed to improve the ability of the CDA to count particle hits may be to blame. Mission managers may try to re-attempt the plume fly-through later this year."
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
I'm just hoping everything goes right the next time around. It's going to be much closer and we "should" get the data we've been searching for.
Re:This stuff doesn't bode well for software (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This stuff doesn't bode well for software (Score:1, Informative)
Re:This stuff doesn't bode well for software (Score:3, Informative)
There you go. You can't have something that you don't want to pay for.
One Instrument Failed! (Score:4, Informative)
CDA's failure is unfortunate to be sure, but it isn't catastrophic. Could the entire news media please stop sensationalizing this?
What's with all the comments about NASA? (Score:2, Informative)
I think there are quite a few Slashdotters who need geography lessons.
Re:What's with all the comments about NASA? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This stuff doesn't bode well for software (Score:4, Informative)
Hold your horses, Tex. It says in the article that they tuned the software to better pick up such particles. They may have had a big choice to keep it the way it was and play it safe, or get fancy to pick up much more data. You don't know what decisions they faced and are thus judging prematurely.
Remember, the instruments weren't originally designed for such, so they may have had to "get creative". There's always risk in exploration.
NASA has some of the best QA practices ever invented:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html [fastcompany.com]
However, it takes time and money. I doubt the Geyser team had much time, for this pass-by is relatively recent in the probe plans.