Maybe the James Webb will go up some day...
NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
111–120 of 333 posts
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#112> At first NASA scientists wondered if a "degrading memory module" on Hubble was to blame. Funny enough, nobody posted the link to the article that says "70% of bugs are memory issues" (or something like that) yet.
"memory issue" seems overly broad or vague.
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Debugging on a computer that is down is not a very exciting process.
In the movie Hero [0], two kung fu masters fight a battle purely in their minds. And when the mental fight was over, they only execute one physical move to finish the battle. Think of this as the computer equivalent of that scene. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299977/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
What a wonderful visual representation of the notion that, "a battle is won before it begins."
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#114I can't figure out what's causing computer issues on my desk. I'm not even in space.
Responding to this comment while debugging a CI/CD pipeline failure for the last hour. I'll toast to the NASA engineers with my cup of coffee.
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#115pushes up glasses I would watch the heck out of a Twitch stream of their debugging/brainstorming sessions. I always loved the movie Apollo 13 , especially the technical troubleshooting parts.
This would be cool for earth satellites. On the other hand watching a stream involving something on Mars, let alone voyager, would be pretty boring! Send: ls Ok let's take a 20 minute break.
From my work experience its like this:
1. Assemble commands to run
2. Run the commands and see results in the 15 minute window
3. See if you can do more commanding in the minutes you have left
4. Make a new plan, wait for next pass, and goto 1
For LEO satellites, that usually means you have 2 blocks of 3 13 minute passes, when the groundstation is in The Netherlands. For a Svalbard groundstation, you get a lot more, but still 13 minute or less passess.
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#116Could computer issue be related to increased solar activity/ solar storms ?
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the movie Hero [0], two kung fu masters fight a battle purely in their minds. And when the mental fight was over, they only execute one physical move to finish the battle. Think of this as the computer equivalent of that scene. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299977/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
In case anyone wants to watch a clip of the fight: https://youtu.be/AeeoEpmyb2Y
_Hero_'s always been one of my favorites. A lot of kung fu movies try to strike a balance between aesthetics and realism - I really enjoy a movie that picks one (in this case the former) and goes all in on it. It's got a fight that takes place entirely on the surface of a lake, and another that takes places in a forest of falling leaves that change color several times throughout the scene. It's an incredibly beautiful movie.
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#118pushes up glasses I would watch the heck out of a Twitch stream of their debugging/brainstorming sessions. I always loved the movie Apollo 13 , especially the technical troubleshooting parts.
Debugging on a computer that is down is not a very exciting process.
I did something like that when trying to boot my brand new root server in Finland a few weeks ago (tried ~50 times while having UEFI enabled plus mdadm raid1 on GPT partitions, never worked, asked support to disable UEFI, worked).
Confirming that not being able to ping/connect to it during the failed attempts was absolutely not exciting :)
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there evidence of either yet? I’m not sure how you get from “potential” failure mode to “most likely”
They're trying to find the broken component; what caused the issue is usually a handful of things in space. Those are usually the top causes of component failure in that environment.
So no evidence then.
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#120pushes up glasses I would watch the heck out of a Twitch stream of their debugging/brainstorming sessions. I always loved the movie Apollo 13 , especially the technical troubleshooting parts.
If you want to see debugging a computer in space, check out Apollo 13's sequel, Apollo 14. The moon landing is being held up by shorted-out switch that's causing the LM to abort the landing, and it's up to the programmers back home to figure out how to work around it in time to allow the landing.
Apollo 13 was the story of a 'successful failure', while Apollo 14 shows how hard work and creative thinking can turn failure into success.