Why did a $72 million mission to check water on the moon fail so quickly after launch? A brand new NASA report has the reply.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Thursday marked one yr in the past at present, a NASA probe referred to as Lunar Trailblazer lifted off from Kennedy House Heart in Florida. Its mission was to map the water on the moon, however a day after the launch, mission managers misplaced contact with the spacecraft. It was by no means heard from once more, not like B.J. Leiderman, who does our theme music. Now NPR has discovered precisely why the $72 million mission failed. Joe Palca has this report.
JOE PALCA, BYLINE: The launch was profitable, however the first communication from Lunar Trailblazer confirmed one thing was fallacious with the facility system. A report by a assessment panel convened by NASA to discover why the mission failed accommodates the reason. Software program that was imagined to level the spacecraft photo voltaic panels towards the solar as a substitute pointed them 180 levels away from the solar. The panel discovered different software program errors as nicely. Tim Cook dinner has expertise with these sorts of failures.
TIM COOK: When a sophisticated system fails, it is often multiple factor that takes it down.
PALCA: Cook dinner was undertaking supervisor for Terriers, a failed mission to check Earth’s ionosphere. It additionally suffered a pointing drawback with its photo voltaic panels. Cook dinner says one drawback can set off others.
COOK: You get a cascading collection of a few completely different failures that end in, finally, the unhealthy consequence that you just’re investigating to start out with.
PALCA: Lockheed Martin constructed the low-cost Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft. The NASA panel says the corporate didn’t correctly check the pointing software program earlier than launch. Mission managers may need been capable of repair that drawback, however different software program points made it finally not possible.
Neither Lockheed Martin nor NASA would supply a spokesperson for remark. However in an announcement, Lockheed stated it had discovered classes from Lunar Trailblazer and would make modifications going ahead. The assertion additionally identified that lower-cost missions are inherently riskier. A NASA assertion additionally talked about classes discovered.
Scott Hubbard is a NASA veteran, now at Stanford College. He says, sure, NASA accepts greater threat with decrease value, or so-called class D, missions.
SCOTT HUBBARD: What class D was imagined to imply is that you just have been taking an enormous threat of not getting the science that was as excessive precision as you have been planning on. It did not imply the entire darn factor would not work.
PALCA: Hubbard says you possibly can take threat.
HUBBARD: However take mitigated, understood threat. Do not take silly threat. And the best way I characterize it’s, an inexpensive failure is not any good for anyone.
PALCA: Hubbard says the mission loss is especially onerous for scientists who’ve dedicated a big a part of their careers to a undertaking, scientists like Robert Lillis. He is at UC Berkeley and principal investigator for an additional class D mission referred to as Escapade. Escapade is definitely a pair of spacecraft headed to Mars to check how the photo voltaic wind impacts the Martian ambiance. Lillis says the Lunar Trailblazer expertise prompted NASA to provide Escapade further scrutiny earlier than it left Earth final November. Even so, there have been nervous moments within the management room after launch.
ROBERT LILLIS: We have been supposed to listen to from the spacecraft inside one hour and presumably as many as three hours.
PALCA: As an alternative, silence.
LILLIS: My thoughts instantly went to Trailblazer. And I had this sinking dread within the pit of my abdomen.
PALCA: Then mission managers discovered a small error within the path floor antennas meant to speak with the probe have been pointing.
LILLIS: Six hours after launch, we appeared in the precise place – increase. There they have been. The aid was like nothing I might felt in my complete life.
PALCA: The Escapade probes will not attain Mars till September subsequent yr, so it’s going to be some time earlier than he is aware of whether or not the teachings of Lunar Trailblazer have actually been discovered.
For NPR Information, I am Joe Palca.
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