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"So they actually performed a software upgrade of on the spacecraft to give it optical navigation capabilities..." God dammit. And here I have trouble getting

"So they actually performed a software upgrade of on the spacecraft to give it optical navigation capabilities..." God dammit. And here I have trouble getting software updates into a server I have full control over on Earth.

shadowgovt 6y ago
Sadly, most of us don't have the luxury of working in environment where (a) it's mandated that we set up a 1-for-1 test rig with the production infrastructure and (b) management will accept the answer "I need to test for all possible contingencies because failure is not an option." (Most of us are writing code in an environment where failure is totally an option, as long as it's fast and restoration is quick ;) ).
- moron4hire 6y ago
  Another part of the difficulty with updating servers is that updates are rather opaque. My own software on any given server is maybe 0.1% of all the software running on it (if even that). The other 99.9% is someone else's code: the operating system, the software runtime, the libraries, etc. So one doesn't really have a lot of insight into what is about to happen to the server without running a duplicate setup, which as you point out is pretty difficult to get right. I'm sure NASA has much more visibility into all the software that is running on their spacecraft.
  - manquer 6y ago
    While the abstractions is lesser for a spacecraft, I don't think any one is hand compiling or writing machine code directly. There will always be some abstraction layers.
- bumby 6y ago
  While the requirement is there, often it falls through the cracks. A recent example is the wrong mapping of the Starliner thrusters. This wasn’t found until the simulator changed due to brownouts after it was already in orbit. Just by luck, the new simulator was of sufficient fidelity to catch the mapping error. Had 1) they not missed the correct orbit due to a different issue and 2) not had to switch simulators it could have potentially collided with the space station. So yes, the requirements are there but often not followed but luck was on our side
BurningFrog 6y ago
Then again NASA has a $22B budget.
- HenryKissinger 6y ago
  Many large corporations have budgets in excess of that and still struggle with delivering solutions and software updates. Internally or externally.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    Sure, but I was trying to cheer `moron4hire` up, who I assume has a lot fewer zeroes in their budget.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      Hell, I'd take a comma over some of those zeros!
    - moron4hire 6y ago
      Yeah, I'm the only zero in the budget
- jvanderbot 6y ago
  The mission has a very small sliver of that budget. Trust me, there's no "NASA" that comes running when things go wrong: It's on the mission team to handle it.
gene-h 6y ago
And now optical navigation has been flight proven so it can be used on other missions.
- jvanderbot 6y ago
  Optical nav was flight proven a long time ago. For deep space (autonav, deep space 1), and for mars landers.

shadowgovt 6y ago

Sadly, most of us don't have the luxury of working in environment where (a) it's mandated that we set up a 1-for-1 test rig with the production infrastructure and (b) management will accept the answer "I need to test for all possible contingencies because failure is not an option." (Most of us are writing code in an environment where failure is totally an option, as long as it's fast and restoration is quick ;) ).

moron4hire 6y ago
Another part of the difficulty with updating servers is that updates are rather opaque. My own software on any given server is maybe 0.1% of all the software running on it (if even that). The other 99.9% is someone else's code: the operating system, the software runtime, the libraries, etc. So one doesn't really have a lot of insight into what is about to happen to the server without running a duplicate setup, which as you point out is pretty difficult to get right. I'm sure NASA has much more visibility into all the software that is running on their spacecraft.
- manquer 6y ago
  While the abstractions is lesser for a spacecraft, I don't think any one is hand compiling or writing machine code directly. There will always be some abstraction layers.
bumby 6y ago
While the requirement is there, often it falls through the cracks. A recent example is the wrong mapping of the Starliner thrusters. This wasn’t found until the simulator changed due to brownouts after it was already in orbit. Just by luck, the new simulator was of sufficient fidelity to catch the mapping error. Had 1) they not missed the correct orbit due to a different issue and 2) not had to switch simulators it could have potentially collided with the space station. So yes, the requirements are there but often not followed but luck was on our side

BurningFrog 6y ago

Then again NASA has a $22B budget.

HenryKissinger 6y ago
Many large corporations have budgets in excess of that and still struggle with delivering solutions and software updates. Internally or externally.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  Sure, but I was trying to cheer `moron4hire` up, who I assume has a lot fewer zeroes in their budget.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Hell, I'd take a comma over some of those zeros!
  - moron4hire 6y ago
    Yeah, I'm the only zero in the budget
jvanderbot 6y ago
The mission has a very small sliver of that budget. Trust me, there's no "NASA" that comes running when things go wrong: It's on the mission team to handle it.

gene-h 6y ago

And now optical navigation has been flight proven so it can be used on other missions.

jvanderbot 6y ago
Optical nav was flight proven a long time ago. For deep space (autonav, deep space 1), and for mars landers.