Re: NASA orbit simulation software

"Pat Flannery" <flanner@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:c7mdncXmVMw06IzXnZ2dnUVZ_oKdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


OM wrote:
....Jorge, I thought Pat was really just joking with that one. Would it
do any good to ask if you'd give him a second chance?

No, I was not joking, and here's why:
If each of the NASA space centers were using multiple programs to determine how a satellite's orbit would end up... and they were all using the _same_ programs, that would be great; as they could spot something suspicious in the the solution one program showed if it varied from the rest, and look into that aspect in more detail.

Umm, no. If they are using hte same software and put in the same inputs, they'd see the same outputs.

Software is very deterministic that way. If they DO see something different, it's a hardware issue, not a software issue.

If you really want to test the answer, you calculate it two DIFFERENT ways.

But having different space centers using different programs to try to figure out the same thing is bound to cause communications problems if one program comes up with a different solution than the others, and they want to figure out _why_ that occurred.

You're assuming that they are trying to figure out the same thing. (which given NASA is a bureaucracy may be true, but is not generaly the goal).

Then people at two or more different NASA centers have to discuss matters in regards to two or more different programs that they each are not familiar with, as it's not the one they use at "their" space center.
At the very least that is going to cause inconvenience...at worst, it could cause misunderstandings between the two centers that could cause a mission to get screwed up...in much the way the Mars Polar Orbiter mission did as two separate teams had two different understandings of where the spacecraft was and where it was going in relation to the atmosphere of Mars.

Pat




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Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

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