NASA: Mars Probe Doomed By Human Error

Report Finds Error Triggered Battery To Fail On Mars Global Surveyor Last Year

(AP)  Human error triggered a cascade of events that caused the battery to fail on the Mars Global Surveyor last year, according to a preliminary report released Friday.

An internal NASA board determined that power loss likely doomed the spacecraft after a decade of meticulously mapping the Red Planet.

But the problems actually began in 2005, when a routine technical update to onboard computers caused inconsistencies in the spacecraft's memory. The board concluded that engineers didn't catch the mistakes because the existing procedures to do so were inadequate.

Scientists lost contact last November with the $154 million Global Surveyor. Launched in 1996, it was the oldest of six different active probes on the Martian surface or circling the planet.

Several attempts to locate the spacecraft were unsuccessful, and the mission was declared ended in January.

Global Surveyor was built with redundant control systems to guard against failure. However, the board found inconsistencies in the memories of the spacecraft's two onboard computers because the updates were done at different times.

Six months before Global Surveyor fell silent, engineers sent up incorrect software commands that disabled its solar panels. A final command in November telling the spacecraft to adjust its solar panels caused the battery to overheat and lose power.

The Global Surveyor beamed back some 240,000 pictures, including the first detailed views of swirling dust devils and gullies.

Shortly before it failed, it also found stunning evidence that liquid water recently coursed through Mars. The discovery, which still needs to be confirmed, raises the possibility that the planet may have an environment conducive to primitive life.

[inventagod2]

Martians been zapping landers again? Sure have lost a lot of them...

[spammenot995]

I guess Marvin was annoyed. :-)

At lest they got lots of info before it bite the dust. Mars dust that is.

[allgood34]

$154 million. Can you imagine what we (the tax payers) could have used that for instead of probing some planet that we will never live on? Can't we choose what to use the money for like the homeless or the unemployed or aids research or something that will make a difference in the US?

[inventagod2]

Try $400 billion - but then, we needed the oil.

[barbaraf4]

This is crazy. NASA needs to fold up their slide rules and go out of business. This is one of many probes or landers or whatevers that have been lost. Mars doesn't want us there, and we certainly don't have the brains to get there. The losses are numbered in the billions and billions. We could do so much for humanity here on earth with that money.

[thgdriver]

Scientists, probably the same bunch of losers that support Al Gore and his global warming BS.

[delfmast]

NASA apparently never lets Safety or Quality considerations interfere with a good days work, an arrogant contracting officer, or a faster cheaper schedule. Until the two foot long shelf of books about institutionalizing quality, that are left forgotten, in the excellent NASA technical library get checked out, for the first time in years, and are carefully read, and sensibly implemented, quality at NASA may be problematic. If even a few of those old reliable pearls of Quality wisdom could be read, and used, with conviction, by NASA's top management, and a committed Quality approach inculcated into every stakeholder in NASA, the continuing waste of taxpayers dollars, and astronauts lives that mar NASA's record of brilliant conquests can be ended. Just the single decades old yellow paperback copy of Phil Cosby's "Quality is Free" book, located in the center of that shelf, would be sufficient, if anybody could be convinced to read it, and to commit NASA to do the simple things it suggests. The record of NASA personnel who have read a quality book in the past decade, if it is only that recorded on the date stamped library record, pasted in the fly leafs, of each of those books may tell the whole story of NASA quality. Somebody ought to look at that technical library's records, and ponder the state of NASA Quality those reader's history may imply.

[delfmast]

Is it possible that NASA never lets Safety or Quality considerations interfere with a good days work, an arrogant contracting officer, or a faster cheaper schedule. Until the two foot long shelf of books about how to do quality, that are left forgotten, in the excellent NASA technical library get checked out, for the first time in years, and are carefully read, and sensibly implemented, quality at NASA may be problematic. If even a few of those old reliable pearls of Quality wisdom could be read, and used, with conviction, by NASA's top management, and a committed Quality approach inculcated into every stakeholder in NASA, the continuing wastes of taxpayers dollars, and astronauts lives that mar NASA's record of brilliant conquests can be ended. Just the single decades old yellow paperback copy of Phil Cosby's "Quality is Free" book, located in the center of that shelf, would be sufficient, if anybody could be convinced to read it, and to commit NASA to do the simple things it suggests. The record of NASA personnel who have read a quality book in the past decade, if it is only that recorded on the date stamped library record, pasted in the fly leafs, of each of those books may tell the whole story of NASA quality. Somebody ought to look at that technical library's records, and ponder the state of NASA Quality those reader's history may imply.

[delfmast]

Is it possible that NASA never lets Safety or Quality considerations interfere with a good days work, an arrogant contracting officer, or a faster cheaper schedule. Until the two foot long shelf of books about how to do quality, that are left forgotten, in the excellent NASA technical library get checked out, for the first time in years, and are carefully read, and sensibly implemented, quality at NASA may be problematic. If even a few of those old reliable pearls of Quality wisdom could be read, and used, with conviction, by NASA's top management, and a committed Quality approach inculcated into every stakeholder in NASA, the recurring wastes of taxpayer's dollars, and astronaut's lives that mar NASA's record of brilliant conquests can be ended. Just the single decades old yellow paperback copy of Phil Cosby's "Quality is Free" book, located in the center of that shelf, would be sufficient, if anybody could be convinced to read it, and to commit NASA to do the simple things it suggests. The record of NASA personnel who have read a quality book in the past decade, if it is only that recorded on the date stamped library record, pasted in the fly leafs, of each of those books may tell part of the story of NASA quality. Somebody ought to look at that technical library's records, and ponder the state of NASA Quality those reader's records may imply.

[delfmast]

Is it possible that NASA never lets Safety or Quality considerations interfere with a good days work, an arrogant contracting officer, or a faster cheaper schedule. Until the two foot long shelf of books about how to do quality, that are left forgotten, in the excellent NASA technical library get checked out, for the first time in years, and are carefully read, and sensibly implemented, quality at NASA may be problematic. If even a few of those old reliable pearls of Quality wisdom could be read, and used, with conviction, by NASA's top management, and a committed Quality approach inculcated into every stakeholder in NASA, the recurring wastes of taxpayer's dollars, and astronaut's lives that mar NASA's record of brilliant conquests can be ended. Just the single decades old yellow paperback copy of Phil Cosby's "Quality is Free" book, located in the center of that shelf, would be sufficient, if anybody could be convinced to read it, and to commit NASA to do the simple things it suggests. The record of NASA personnel who have read a quality book in the past decade, if it is only that recorded on the date stamped library record, pasted in the fly leafs, of each of those books may tell part of the story of NASA quality. Somebody ought to look at that technical library's records, and ponder the state of NASA Quality those reader's records may imply.

[tucson23]

Judging the way in which Bush has managed other government scientists, my guess would be that they fired anyone who raised concerns and replaced him with a political hack who graduated from Al's Skool of Outer Space and Stuff.

[pensacola8-2009]

Pre 1996 Unmanned Space Program procedures seemed to follow their brother's foot steps - Manned Space Program. Computer simulations and meticulous procedures for the different "What if's" required teams of engineers to write, to avoid the "Gotcha's painful sting". Lots of imagination is required to create the scenarios and play them out. A few months ago, the Air Force was operating a remotely piloted vehicle and accidently turned off the engine during the hand-off, causing loss of the aircraft vehicle. The cause was failure to follow the checklist. This Global Surveyor is exponentially more complicated and requires a learning curve. My confidence in NASA or JPL will not be disuaded by accidents. We are in a new era for scientific exploration and the returns for our investments are opening the way for more changes to our lives that improve it.

[jon_mccain]

But the problems actually began in 2005, when a routine technical update to onboard computers caused inconsistencies in the spacecraft's memory.

LOL!! Done in by a critical windows update from Microsoft.

[arthurcl1]

I worked at JPL and did a great job and got Laid Off. All of the cost cutting moves NASA does it get rid of the experienced people so they can hire in the inexperienced right out of school for lower cost. This is what they get. NASA is LOST IN SPACE.

[rafterman1]

"We could do so much for humanity here on earth with that money."

Yeah and when that asteroid hits us some day that wipes out all life because we didn't have a space program to get humans off this rock someday and we go extinct as a species, think of all the trillions of dollars wasted on humanity then.

Talk about shortsighted.

[jonny_chaos]

hmmm... laziness and ineptude, fairly common. especially with political appointiees. my guess is 154 million is the sales tax off dollar soda pops for a warm week. say 7.5% average tax on a buck. not going to do the math, but thats like a drop in the bucket. the key is building a few 154 million sports arenas so the guys that arent intrested in much beyond girls gone wild and beer can get theirs to. equal funding, off the taxes from playboy and discover magazines. could get rind of a few government contrats, blackwater, and pay for the whole trip in a week.

[jonny_chaos]

see, lazy and incompetent. i forgot to chack my math. not week for sure.

[sjc_1]

NASA does an amazingly good job with the budget they get. This craft had a good service life and was nearing the end. NASA will learn a lot from all of this and will make future probes even more reliable based on what they have learned.

[danwa3]

10 years operating not bad,
if people would learn from thier(sp)
mistakes,progress
would march on,others could not do
what nasa does so put it where
the sun don't shine

[jonny_chaos]

the cost of the space craft, which furthered human knowledge 154 million. in perspective, Alan Mulally, Ford Motor Co.'s new president and chief executive officer, received compensation valued at $39.1 million during his four months on the job last year. NASAs use of the money was much more impressive. if you think I%u2019m wrong, look at how many auto workers lost their job so that guy could make that money. And not even a picture to show the kids%u2026 science is so much more impressive then chicanery.

[hypnotoad72]

Human error. How much is blamed on the quality of the equipment bought; was it made in the same factories as Dell brand computers?! (hint, hint)

[mikealford3]

I get pi**ed everytime I see something like this. 154 million may not look like much compared to the whole budget, but how many people could be fed for the same amount? How many perscriptions could be filled for that amount? How many women could have mamograms or other tests for that amount? As a cancer survivor it makes me made to know our government is more interested in exploring Mars or Pluto than they are finding cures and treatments for deseases like cancer.

[mikealford3]

This is just the tip of the iceberg. How about the $7 billion that NASA is spending to send a probe to Pluto? Now they don't even consider Pluto to be a planet. My goodness our scientist know more about the moon and mars than they do about the Pacific or Atlantic oceans.

One other amazing thing. NASA can build a robot, send it to Mars. The robot can drill into the surface and analyze the material and send a report back to earth. Yet we still do not have a machine capable of collecting votes in Florida and transmitting the data to a central location for our elections. That makes good sense, huh?

[thgdriver]

Rafterman1

Sometimes, I think the earth and the solar system for that matter, would be better off without us. When the big rock hits, I just hope it's over fast, and no one, especially children suffer

[gordon.couger]

"Global Surveyor was built with redundant control systems to guard against failure. However, the board found inconsistencies in the memories of the spacecraft's two on board computers because the updates were done at different times", Quoting AP

It took 2 year to reconstruct it on the ground after the wreck that the redundant computers were not redundant, what were they doing in the flight. If One is broken the system is broken. redundant computers are checked everyday to be sure they are redundant.

"Six months before Global Surveyor fell silent, engineers sent up incorrect software commands that disabled its solar panels", Quoting AP

One really should pay attention and flip the switch the right way.

"A final command in November telling the spacecraft to adjust its solar panels caused the battery to overheat and lose power. ", Quoting AP

They don't have safety monitors on the batteries?

NASA is a very open place that gets things done that are so complex it is amazing they work at all. Errors happen and almost all of them are caught in time. Look at all the projects that they have that are running way past their expected live expiations.

In the the early days of the X planes they killed 1 pilot a month for a while. We sure wouldn't tolerate that today. They work in risky business and their stuff won;t work like Boeing's and a lot of it can't be brought in for service.

GC

[brandonshultz]

OK - so someone(s) screwed up! And yes, it cost us a piece of equipment that was very expensive and when compared to other ways the money could have been spent you can make it sound like a waste.

But lets not forget that if we had not spent the money we spend on NASA and its projects things like learning LED light causes cells in animals and plants on earth to operate at double their normal capacity. This is now being used in a study in Wisconsin for Children with brain cancer by applying LED light to human immune system cells which cause them to become "super" immune system cells and can in some cases defeat the cancer and save lives.

Yet if it wasn't for NASA studying alternative ways to grow plants in space and learning that LED light caused such a reaction we wouldn't know this and many of those children would be suffering or dieing unnecessarily. But I'm sure that money could have been spent on other things and those children's life could be traded for something more important.

Instead of blasting their mistakes lets remember there's only so much money to go around and although it may not be important to you, every project has a purpose and a reason. And of course don't forget... we are all human. The mistake is disappointing, but none-the-less we must continue our frontier into space and learn things we wouldn't otherwise. No matter what the cost.

[pixelslinger]

We spent millions of dollars developing a pen that could write in space. Do you know what the Russians did?

They used a pencil.


Space is the next fronteer. That and the Sea. We are supposed to go there because we came out of the cave, and then looked over the hill. Because we discovered fire and invented the wheel.

Unfortunately, Abrek and Bion can't pilot a space shuttle and couldn't take scientific observations of Mars, nor begin to create a livable planet from it. If we don't destroy each other first, someday our descendents will look on the Earth at night.

It is an expensive gamble, discovery. If we devoted even half of the money and human sacrifice to the stars that we've devoted to armies and wars, we would have colonized Venus a decade ago.

[noaanhc]

$154,000,000 for a spaceship is pocket change compared to the billions wasted on in Iraq.
That $154,000,000 amount isn't even 1 percent of the GDP of this nation.Nasa isn't perfect by any means but this is the organization that put this country on the moon 40 years ago and made us all proud to be Americans back then and will make us proud again when we return to the moon in 2020.
However with the Iraq war and domestic problems at home,we shouldn't give Nasa a blank check,
they must come before Congress and justify every dollar that they need for space exploration.

[mikealford3]

There are many valid points here. I agree without this war mess we could have more money for other things. I just think some things seem foolish. $7 Billion dollars to "attempt" to send a probe to Pluto is a little outrageous, considering scientists now say it's not even a planet. Could tests of LED lights and the effects of them on plants and animals have been done here on earth? If we take care of the earth, why would we need to colonize Venus?

Again we can put a robot on mars or the moon even to Pluto, yet we still have not developed a computer that can collect VOTES in a national election from around the 50 states and transmit the results to a central location somewhere in the U.S.

[musty2u]

My money is on Iraq; looking for a return in a virtual vaccuum seems ludicrous to me. Better yet, a weather-proof airline industry would have some benefits here on terra firma.

[Razzl]

Science has already laid out the road map for us: either explore space and begin to move life outward from our solar system or perish when the sun collapses. (Or when the earth's core solidifies, which in some scenarios is as soon as 100 years, extinguishing the magnetosphere and allowing us to be fried by the sun). So now what is space exploration worth? Do you want the human race and life on earth to be able to continue elsewhere in the future, or does it not matter to you?

[rf35]

America, in cooperation with other countries, must continue to fund aggressive space research and exploration if **** sapiens is to survive. The human population has exceeded Earth's ability to sustain it. Unless some unforeseen catastrophe results in a massive population plunge, the only way for the species to survive is to find new resources. The oceans are dying, so no help there. Space is the logical alternative. If we can manage long enough to get out of the solar system, or at least find sources of consumables nearer home, we'll have a chance. Otherwise, it means extinction. How's that for benefiting people?

[rf35]

razzl,
I am looking for information on the solidification of Earth's outher core, but I can't seem to find anything. Where did you get this information? Also, why would losing our magnetic field be bad (aside from compasses no longer working)? The field does not do much as far as solar radiation is concerned. It deflects some particles from the solar wind and gives us pretty northern lights. The planet would definitely not fry if the field collapsed. The movie "The Core" was filled with inane ideas and from start ot finish.

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html

Check out this link regarding the "science" of that movie. It's both funny and somewhat educational.

[rf35]

Please forgive the typos in my last posts. I think I need more coffee...

[mikealford3]

rf35, actually according to a Discovery channel special on the northern lights, without the magnetic field at the poles, earth would fry. The Aurora Borialis(forgive the spelling)or northern lights are caused by tremendous amounts of solar energy coming from storms on the surface of the sun. The magnetic fields at the poles attract that solar energy which results in the lights. Without that magnetic field at the poles, those solar storms would hit the earth with enough energy to radiate and kill millions of people around the world. One scientist said there is enough solar energy in the northern lights to supply the entire earth with electricity for a year.

[mikealford3]

I hate to tell some of you this, but by the time the sun burns out there will not be any life on earth to see it go dark. We are so busy hating and killing each other the last human will likely die of bordom after years of being alone.

I wonder if some of you who talk about the human population exceeding the capacity of the earth's resources are willing to refuse help next time you get sick? The next time someone you love gets sick, would you be willing to let them die so the rest of us could use their part of the resources, I doubt it.

[rf35]

mikealford3,
I'm doing my part by not having any children. I also support educational initiatives to teach people that Earth's population is unsustainable and to urge them to forgo having multiple, if any, children. I'm not telling anyone to refuse treatment if they are ill or to go out and jump off a building to make the world a better place. Though for some, that might be a good idea ;) Seriously, the only way to reduce the suffering of humanity as a whole is by reducing the population by way of greater reproducitve responsibility. Nobody has any reason to have half a dozen kids. 0-1= population reduction, 2=population sustainment, 3=a death sentence for Earth.

[rf35]

The Earth's magnetic poles have flipped several times throughout the planet's history. These do not tie in with any mass extinction events, so the Earth obviously did not fry even though the magnetic field virtually shut down during these flips. We are actually due for another reversal anytime between now and the next few thousand years or so. I would love to be around when it happens to watch the chaos as magnetic media is destroyed, navigation systems go haywire, communications are critically disrupted, and basically anything electronic gets fried. Or maybe it will be barely noticeable since the field is so weakened during these events. It would be fascinating to witness in any case.