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"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
by dabluecaboose 4mo 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 4mo agoI 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 4mo agoThat's already known as "rapid unscheduled disassembly" - and happens so-often in spaceflight that it's hardly anomalous at this point.
- waste_monk 4mo agoI do love the term "lithobraking" as well.
- superxpro12 4mo agoI feel like we're all forgetting the most obvious root cause... "aliens"
- bayindirh 4mo agoOr 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