3 ms·
> It turns out that landing on Mars is really hard. Of 17 attempted landings, only 8 have been successful, all built by JPL. This is practically offtopic, but
by avmich 7y ago
> It turns out that landing on Mars is really hard. Of 17 attempted landings, only 8 have been successful, all built by JPL.
This is practically offtopic, but this is technically incorrect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3
> ...the Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to attain a soft landing on Mars, on 2 December 1971. It failed 20 seconds after landing...
- dmix 7y agoThe number of programs the soviets ran in the 60/70s makes me jealous of that era. One interesting note from the Wikipedia: > This reliability problem was common to much Soviet space hardware from the late 1960s and early 1970s and was largely corrected with a deliberate policy, implemented in the mid-1970s, of consolidating (or "debugging") existing designs rather than introducing new ones. Software developers have learned this well in recent years. Bottom up rewrites being far more risky than improving the legacy system is basically common knowledge at this point.
- branchan 7y agoI mean, the whole statement is not correct. Sure JPL manufactured some things but it also acts just like NASA, managing the Mars projects. Most of the spacecraft I would say were manufactured in partnership with other industry aerospace companies.