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Lightsail Update: Back in Communication

posted by martyb on Monday June 01 2015, @08:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the needed-to-open-all-hailing-frequencies dept.

tonyPick writes:

An update at the Planetary Society homepage is reporting that the LightSail has reopened communications following a suspected software glitch.

"Based upon the on-board timers contained within the beacon (and comparing them to beacons following deployment), it appears that a reboot occurred within the past day," wrote Georgia Tech professor David Spencer, LightSail's mission manager.

[...] LightSail is not out of the woods yet. Its exact position remains fuzzy, complicating two-way communication.

This is an update to the previous article on the LightSail software problem.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by pTamok on Monday June 01 2015, @09:57AM

    by pTamok (3042) on Monday June 01 2015, @09:57AM (#190626)

    There is a newer blogpost available:

    LightSail Team Prepares for Possible Tuesday Sail Deployment : http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20150531-lightsail-possible-tuesday-deploy.html [planetary.org]

    - communication is improved, but the satellie is tumbling too much to allow sufficient stable communication to do a patch to resolve the original issue. The workaround is regular reboots.
    - they have a fairly good fix on where it is.
    - they plan to deploy the lighsail manuall on Tuesday (local time)

    • (Score: 2) by black6host on Monday June 01 2015, @01:20PM

      by black6host (3827) on Monday June 01 2015, @01:20PM (#190683) Journal

      I'm glad to hear they're making progress. It amazes me as to how we deal with problems such as this. It's like talking to my mother when she call for support. Reboot, mom. Still not working, wait 5 minutes and reboot... Still having problems? Wait until tomorrow to give the computer a rest and then reboot. And so on.... Eventually, amazingly, the problem gets fixed!!!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @02:02PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @02:02PM (#190702)

        Stupid software guys always try to blame the hardware guys, but in the end it is almost always the software.

  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday June 01 2015, @01:20PM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday June 01 2015, @01:20PM (#190684)

    FTFA:

    > Because the primary goal of the test mission is sail deployment, the
    > plan to apply the patch has been shelved. As a workaround, LightSail
    > will be rebooted at least once per day to reset the contents of
    > beacon.csv, the spreadsheet-like file that stores the spacecraft’s
    > automated data chirps. Several successful reboots have already been
    > completed.

    Giggles... nice to know they are human programmers.

    • (Score: 2) by tibman on Monday June 01 2015, @03:17PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 01 2015, @03:17PM (#190734)

      Makes you wonder why there isn't some kind of cron to perform automated and scheduled tasks. Like truncating a file..

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  • (Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Monday June 01 2015, @03:01PM

    by iWantToKeepAnon (686) on Monday June 01 2015, @03:01PM (#190724) Homepage Journal
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p85xwZ_OLX0 [youtube.com]
    --
    "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy