[X] My Assistant

[Guest_paulanderson_*]

Just a reminder that the press briefing is tomorrow (November 30, 2005) at 10:00 am ET / 7:00 am PT and will be shown live on NASA TV:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/nov/H...s_Briefing.html

[tedstryk]

Just a reminder that the press briefing is tomorrow (November 30, 2005) at 10:00 am ET / 7:00 am PT and will be shown live on NASA TV:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/nov/H...s_Briefing.html

Some major discoveries will be announced, including:

Titan has an atmosphere
The Hellas and Argyre basins on Mars are of impact origin.
Mars has large volcanos in the Tharsis region.
Mars has two moons.

[The Messenger]

I have been very impressed with the Cassini mission reporting, both with the quick release of raw data, new observations, and the event log:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/sig-events.cfm

It is great to have a front row seat to a great mission!

I bring attention to this here, because of this entry in the Cassini event log:

It turns out that the SSPS for the USO was tripped, causing no one-way
downlink carrier or data. This tripped switch condition is consistent with
ones seen in the past. This is the sixteenth trip seen to date, the third
trip of a switch that was ON at the time, and the second trip this year. The
previous trip occurred very recently on March 2, 2006. They are predicted
to occur at a rate of about two per year, and are most likely caused by
Galactic Cosmic Rays.

I have to ask the question: Could the Huygens channel 'A' failure have been caused by the accidental tripping of the SSPS for the Huygens USO by a cosmic ray, rather than a programming error? The announcement that it was a programming error was made on the same day as the landing, at a time when everyone was exhaustively tired and not necessarily in best form for analysing code.

Has a follow-up report been issued confirming the programming error? Was it related to ITAR access restrictions as has been intimated elsewhere? As a sometimes analyst of critical event programing, it is difficult for me to imaging that the command to "Turn on the Power Supply" was omitted from a programing sequence that developed through years of careful planning. This is one time that a gremlin makes more sense.

[Bob Shaw]

The announcement that it was a programming error was made on the same day as the landing, at a time when everyone was exhaustively tired and not necessarily in best form for analysing code.

I had the impression that the error was not in the computer programme content so much as in the workflow, and that the error was managerial rather than anything else - it simply wasn't picked up during whatever preparatory work was done.

I may be wrong...

Bob shaw

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

I had the impression that the error was not in the computer programme content so much as in the workflow, and that the error was managerial rather than anything else - it simply wasn't picked up during whatever preparatory work was done.

I may be wrong...

There was quite a detailed article on the error in Aviation Week, in which the ESA not only said flatly that it was a software error, but blamed ITAR for not allowing them to do enough software rechecks to catch it. More details later, when I'm not too tired to look them up.

[mcaplinger]

ESA not only said flatly that it was a software error, but blamed ITAR for not allowing them to do enough software rechecks to catch it...

Was it ITAR that caused them to forget the Doppler effect in their receiver design? I don't think so.
I think they are just using ITAR as a convenient excuse for simple human error.