Europe's Mars lander failed due to hardware and software inadequacies, according to a new report:
The crashed European spacecraft Schiaparelli was ill-prepared for its attempt at landing on the surface of Mars. That's the conclusion of an inquiry into the failure on 16 October 2016.
The report outlines failings during the development process and makes several recommendations ahead of an attempt to land a rover on Mars in 2020. That mission will require more testing, improvements to software and more outside oversight of design choices.
[...] The report authors catalogue a series of necessary upgrades to onboard software, as well as suggesting improvements to the modelling of parachute dynamics. They also recommended a more stringent approach - including better quality control - during the procurement of equipment from suppliers.
One of the recommendations is that NASA's JPL should double-check ESA's work.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday May 26 2017, @12:01AM
Good? You can argue that, but better vs worse is no contest. There is an editorial cartoon that gets reposted a lot. It has four things from left to right. Terrorist, baby carriage (terrorist is crouched behind it and shooting) a gap then Israeli soldier in front of baby carriage in defensive posture aiming at terrorist. That pretty much sums up the difference. The Israeli military kills a few children by accident, mostly because the terrorists use civilians as human shields while the terrorists intentionally kill children and exult in the deed. There really is good and evil in the world and it usually isn't too hard to tell the difference. Some people, for political reasons, attempt to posture that there isn't, that evil is situational and relative, etc. But no, there is absolute evil.