[IGSTK-Developers] Software Failure : responsible for the lost of the Mars Global Surveyor

[Luis Ibanez]

Science 20 April 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5823, p. 355
DOI: 10.1126/science.316.5823.355b


Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) went silent last November after orbiting the
planet for 10 years, not from old age but because of a software error.
A NASA investigative board report has concluded that the mission
operations team sent a *software update* months before to the wrong part
of the spacecraft's computer memory, wreaking havoc on the spacecraft
after Surveyor received a routine command. An antiquated onboard
fault-protection system subsequently misinterpreted the situation, and
within 2 hours Surveyor had died of insufficient battery recharging.

Like other NASA missions extended far beyond their promised design
lifetime, MGS had suffered reductions in its operations budget and
staffing. "We didn't find that any decrease directly caused the
anomaly," said board chair Dolly Perkins of Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Maryland. But she said, "It's beneficial to step back and
see what risks from aging and changes in operations" might be
developing. That lesson is being applied to all Mars missions as well as
ones taking the better part of a decade to reach targets such as Mercury
and Pluto.