Darn shame the Galileo VEEGA (Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist) didn't work. In addition once Galileo somehow got to Jupiter, it a crying shame that its descent probe had so many problems with its path for entry into the Jovian atmosphere. Once again, pure luck must have had a role, since the descent probe actually did what it was supposed to do.
Yup, that bodes ill for Huygens.
More errata:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Jerry
This past Summer, the Beagle expedition ended as another of a long line of Mars failures when the probe failed to respond after entering the Martian atmosphere.
|
The Beagle 2 landing attempt was December 25, 2003. That's hardly "last summer" unless perhaps you're in the southern hemisphere.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Jerry
On December 26th, the Huygen probe is scheduled to be jettisoned from Cassini and make a soft landing on Titan.
|
That's December 25th for Huygens release ("jettison" has negative connotations, BTW).
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Jerry
I will further demonstrate the root cause of the failure of Polar Orbiter, the Global Surveyor and at least four other Martian missions is the same, and that Huygens will almost certainly fail unless new physical considerations are included in the descent profile.
|
The Mars Global Surveyor recently completed its 25,000th orbit of Mars.
Here's a link. How many orbits would it have to complete and then stop functioning for you to consider it a failure?
By "Polar Orbiter" I surmise you actually mean the "Mars Polar Lander"? That mission failed due to internal signal problems during the landing.
The final NASA report concluded the most probable cause of the failure was the generation of spurious signals when the lander legs were deployed during descent. The spurious signals gave a false indication that the spacecraft had landed, resulting in a premature shutdown of the engines and the destruction of the lander when it crashed on Mars.
This link has more data.
Then again "Polar Orbiter" might mean the "Mars Climate Orbiter".
The Mars Climate Orbiter failed due to the use of improper units. The MCO MIB determined that the root cause for the loss of the MCO spacecraft was the failure to use metric units in the coding of a ground software file, “Small Forces,” used in trajectory models. Specifically, thruster performance data in English units instead of metric units was used in the software application code titled SM_FORCES (small forces). The output from the SM_FORCES application code as required by a Mars Surveyor Operations Project Software Interface Specification (SIS) was to be in metric units of Newton-seconds (N-s). Instead, the data was reported in English units of pound-seconds (lbf-s).
The Angular Momentum Desaturation (AMD) file contained the output data from the SM_FORCES software. The SIS, which was not followed, defines both the format and units of the AMD file generated by ground-based computers. Subsequent processing of the data from AMD file by the navigation software algorithm therefore underestimated the effect on the spacecraft trajectory by a factor of 4.45, which is the required conversion factor from force in pounds to Newtons. An erroneous trajectory was computed using this incorrect data.
In short, Lockheed Martin Astronautics used English units in its data which, when sent to JPL, was interpreted as metric. The spacecraft went too low in the Martian atmosphere and either burned up or kicked out into solar orbit.
Here's a link with more information.
The failures of these two missions were due to engineering errors, and were ultimately assignable to NASA's "Faster, Better, Cheaper" operating philosophy.
Concerning your foray into number tweaking and numerology, the coincidences remind me of Bode's "Law".