It seems pretty insane that a system that's designed to carry people, and thus should be extra super-duper quadruple checked for problems and have multiple backups for all critical functions, could become out of time sync with launch control.
According to the New York Times, "the spacecraft's software set its clock [incorrectly] based on the time it received from the Atlas 5 rocket before launch." And no one noticed?? No system noticed? Not a single pop-up anywhere? I get that a rocket doesn't have a cellular internet connection running Android, but one would think it might have a decent GPS on board at least...
Software is hard. Spaceflight is hard. But I would have thought we had the whole timekeeping thing worked out by now. I guess that's probably what the Boeing software devs thought as well...
According to the New York Times, "the spacecraft's software set its clock [incorrectly] based on the time it received from the Atlas 5 rocket before launch." And no one noticed?? No system noticed? Not a single pop-up anywhere? I get that a rocket doesn't have a cellular internet connection running Android, but one would think it might have a decent GPS on board at least...
Software is hard. Spaceflight is hard. But I would have thought we had the whole timekeeping thing worked out by now. I guess that's probably what the Boeing software devs thought as well...