4 ms·

From now on, every time I see the word "anomaly" I will assume it is an euphemism for "someone stepped on it".

• dabluecaboose 3mo ago
  "Anomaly" is one of those words that, in the space industry, can mean anything from "Our payload isn't behaving as well as we're expecting" to "Someone stepped on it" to "A rock hit it" You can use it to describe literally anything that's off nominal. It's fantastic.
  • bigfatkitten 3mo ago
    I learned recently that it can also mean "the spacecraft exploded on the launchpad in an enormous fireball." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-29/blue-origin-rocket-explodes-during-test-jeff-bezos/106737482 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-29/blue-origin-rocket-ex...
    • DaiPlusPlus 3mo ago
      That's already known as "rapid unscheduled disassembly" - and happens so-often in spaceflight that it's hardly anomalous at this point.
      • waste_monk 3mo ago
        I do love the term "lithobraking" as well.
  • superxpro12 3mo ago
    I feel like we're all forgetting the most obvious root cause... "aliens"
  • bayindirh 3mo ago
    Or it has failed catastrophically and gone under voluntary rapid disassembly to help engineers to diagnose the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC9icOKGJ94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC9icOKGJ94