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the spacecraft had tipped over as a result of its landing I can only imagine the frustration of the engineers and scientists.
by rollypolly 14y ago
the spacecraft had tipped over as a result of its landing
I can only imagine the frustration of the engineers and scientists.
- hartror 14y agoYeah though not as much as that of the Mars Climate Orbiter team who's mission failed due to using imperial rather than metric units in a navigation program.
- drzaiusapelord 14y agoIn both cases the space agencies had "fly them cheap and often" philosophies, neither of which panned out.
- maxerickson 14y agoThat failure was somewhat more subtle than that. Someone produced a data file with no information about what the numbers in the file meant. Someone else made an assumption about the meaning of the numbers. Using a single system of measurement would certainly reduce the chance of negative consequences from such sloppiness, but the sloppiness was the problem, not the units used in the data file.
- hartror 14y agoAgreed. Sorry I phrased my comment poorly.
- sp332 14y agoOr the Genesis spacecraft, which had a sensor designed upside-down and smashed into the desert with the first samples of "solar wind". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_%28spacecraft%29#Mishap_Investigation_Board_.28MIB.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_%28spacecraft%29#Misha...
- maratd 14y ago> I can only imagine the frustration of the engineers and scientists. I think you mean fear and sheer terror.
- arethuza 14y agoI'm not sure if failure of a space probe would have been quite as disastrous for team members as it probably would have been under Stalin. For example, after the first Soviet atomic test the rule for rewards was that anyone who would have been shot if it had failed received a car.