Software Glitch Means Loss of NASA's Deep Impact Comet Probe

Taco Cowboy writes "'NASA is calling off attempts to find its Deep Impact comet probe after a suspected software glitch shut down radio communications in August, officials said on Friday.' Last month, engineers lost contact with Deep Impact and unsuccessfully tried to regain communications. The cause of the failure was unknown, but NASA suspects the spacecraft lost control, causing its antenna and solar panels to be pointed in the wrong direction. NASA had hoped Deep Impact would play a key role in observations of the approaching Comet ISON, a suspected first-time visitor to the inner solar system that was discovered in September 2012 by two Russian astronomers. The comet is heading toward a close encounter with the sun in November, a brush that it may not survive." Deep Impact has had a pretty good run, though: from its original mission to launch a copper slug at a comet (hence the name), to looking for Earth-sized planets.

Re: ALIENS

[tysonedwards]

Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar is aliens, isn't it? You lose your keys, it's aliens. A picture falls off the wall, it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog roll in a day, you thought that was aliens as well.

Poor NASA

[djupedal]

Can't find water, can't find methane, can't find their DICP - no wonder they have a hard time finding funding :)

Re: ALIENS

[Esion Modnar]

A roommate of mine in college had a religious poster stuck to the wall with yellow sticky tack. When it inevitably fell to the floor, he looked at where the picture had been, and said: "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ, Satan." Yeah, it was Satan, not that unreliable sticky tack he used. Now, if it had crumpled itself up and flung over to the trash can...

Re:A little more info from NASA

[The Grim Reefer]

Although the exact cause of the loss is not known, analysis has uncovered a potential problem with computer time tagging

Upon further analysis it was discovered that while the hardware was designed to run on imperial hours, minutes, and seconds, the software was written using metric time.

Re: ALIENS

[FatdogHaiku]

That can all be explained without extra-planetary influence...
You lose your keys, it's aliens.
No, that's gremlins.
A picture falls off the wall, it's aliens.
Sorry, that's poltergeists.
That time we used up a whole bog roll in a day, you thought that was aliens as well.
In the USA we normally attribute that to Taco Bell.