3 ms·
> if would have been a glitch that would cause the program to halt unexpectadly, the engines would have remained running I don't know about that. I've worked o
by planteen 10y ago
> if would have been a glitch that would cause the program to halt unexpectadly, the engines would have remained running
I don't know about that. I've worked on systems where there is some hardware with thruster duration that software is writing. So if software crashes, the thrusters stop. (But I have never worked on a lander). If software is running the control loop, things would get very bad if the engines kept running at their previous output levels for 27 seconds. Thrusters are never aligned perfectly, who knows what kind of rate the lander had, there may be wind pushing it, etc. If a thruster blindly kept running, the lander may have spun up, flipped over, etc.
- zer0gravity 10y agoOk, good point. But the point that I wanted to make is that a software crash wouldn't explain why the lander behaved as if it was on the ground. So it's more probable that it reached the "on the ground" condition. If that condition was adequately programmed, the chances that some sensor glitch could have triggered it are quite low. So the probability is higher that it was either badly programmed or maybe someone flipped a bit somewhere ..
- planteen 10y agoYeah I agree, it seems like that between an accelerometer and gyro that it should be fairly clear when you reach the ground condition. Maybe a switches that engages when a lander legs are pressed or something similar as well.