Programming Error Doomed Russian Mars Probe 276
astroengine writes "So it turns out U.S. radars weren't to blame for the unfortunate demise of Russia's Phobos-Grunt Mars sample return mission — it was a computer programming error that doomed the probe, a government board investigating the accident has determined."
According to the Planetary Society Blog's unofficial translation and paraphrasing of the incident report, "The spacecraft computer failed when two of the chips in the electronics suffered radiation damage. (The Russians say that radiation damage is the most likely cause, but the spacecraft was still in low Earth orbit beneath the radiation belts.) Whatever triggered the chip failure, the ultimate cause was the use of non-space-qualified electronic components. When the chips failed, the on-board computer program crashed."
Programming error? (Score:5, Funny)
the ultimate cause was the use of non-space-qualified electronic components
Programming error?
Perhaps in the software used to order the parts
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:5, Funny)
sure, it missed:
if(cpu_melted)
abort();
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a editor failure to me (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, U.S. radars were not responsible for the highly confusing and contradictory summary posted this morning to a Slashdot story about Russia's Phobos-Grunt probe. A thorough investigation has determined that the story's chips should have been able to withstand the radiation received when the story was transmitted through the intertubes and routed over northern Alaska. Instead, investigators blamed a typing failure on the story editors. "A series of tests showed that the editing was lousy and sloppy, and disciplinary action will be taken on those responsible," a spokesman said.
Re:How is "chip failure" a "programming error"? (Score:5, Funny)
A 4 digit ID and never heard of microcode.
Seriously Gramps, the distinction between hardware and software isn't as clear cut as it was when shit was all powered by steam.
Re:headline fail (Score:5, Funny)
(I'm assuming mil spec is fine for space stuff)
You don't happen to work at the Russian Space Agency purchasing department, do you?
Re:So how much? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:5, Funny)
This has nothing to do with reading TFA. It has everything to do with the summary
You just defined all of slashdot. What was your point again?
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:3, Funny)
The linux kernel throws an error about unsupported CPU's, how that code should execute in the first place is a mystery.
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:4, Funny)
You can't possibly call yourself a programmer if your code can't recover from a hardware fault.
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:4, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, code executes you!
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:5, Funny)
Bill
Top Ten reasons for failure of Mars Probe. (Score:4, Funny)
Ripped from old David Letterman "Top Ten List"
10. "Mars probe? What Mars probe?" ... Our space probe sucks -- heh, heh, heh
9. Forgot to use The Club
8. Those lying weasels at Radio Shack
7. Too much Tang
6. Made by G.E.
5. Them Martians musta shot it down with a ray gun
4. Heh, heh, heh
3. At least we didn't blow all our money on some dork screwing around with a car phone
2. Remember Watergate? Well, Nixon's up to his old tricks again!
1. Space monkeys
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:4, Funny)
Amateur. My software is so good it doesn't even NEED hardware.
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:5, Funny)
Except no one knows for certain the computers crashed at all.
I'm quite sure that the computers crashed. Right along with the spacecraft ;-)
Top 10 reasons for failure of Mars Probe. (Score:4, Funny)
10 Software
And it seems the article opted for 11 which is an undefined state.
(Monospace used for effect)
Re:Excuse me... not a programmer's fault. (Score:2, Funny)