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Saw the press conference on the BBC lunchtime news, and the project leader was asked by a journalist "Is it safe to assume it crashed?"
His response was that he didn't understand the question... 
The latest news isn't good though: Schiaparelli Mars probe's parachute 'jettisoned too early' - BBC News[^]
Quote: The European Space Agency (Esa) has not yet conceded that the lander crashed but the mood is not positive.
It appears to have dumped the parachute, and fired it's retros for 3 seconds instead of thirty. And then free-falled the remaining kilometer.
OK ... so who was giving people in QA suggestions about landing procedure code? Come on, own up!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Ah, the parachute was a Hard Brexit (Brake Exited).
This space for rent
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Wise men think alike.
"It is easy to decipher extraterrestrial signals after deciphering Javascript and VB6 themselves.", ISanti[ ^]
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Unfortunately, so do nutters.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I thought they had borrowed their re-entry procedure from KSP.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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If so I think they accidentally stole the lithobreaking code. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Can we call it Schiaparexit instead of crash?
"It is easy to decipher extraterrestrial signals after deciphering Javascript and VB6 themselves.", ISanti[ ^]
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So, instead of landing a rover on Mars as the Americans, the mission was simpeler; see if we can land 'something' without crashing.
And even that failed.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Or simply change the mission objective and result to
* * * We successfully crashed a probe to Mars!!! * * *
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fired it's retros for 3 seconds instead of thirty
Let me guess - time unit misunderstanding between 2 groups?
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I bet their re-entry code went like this:
TimeSpan retro_rocket_burn_length = new TimeSpan(30000000);
TimeSpan retro_rocket_burn_length = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30.0);
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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Still better than one zero too many. In that case they would've crashed on Earth!
... such stuff as dreams are made on
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Or be weird like me and stick the value in a variable
var rocket_burn_seconds = 30;
InitiateBurn(new TimeSpan(rocket_burn_seconds * TimeSpan.TicksPerSecond)
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Was that inches or centimetres?
We're philosophical about power outages here. A.C. come, A.C. go.
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Oops, that was one division by 10 too many.
Next time they will use "i < x" "instead of i <= x". 
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One of the previous times it was because of an English vs metric misunderstanding.
Is there a metric time unit I don't know about?
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I don't think so - but there may be a few that they aren't clear on...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: so who was giving people in QA suggestions about landing procedure code?
Copy and paste, at its best.
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Sounds like a timer problem. Wouldn't it be fun if it really was?
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The code was probably written at ESA Noordwijk, with the problem being caused by the Dutch insistence on using "WHEN" where they should use "IF".
WHEN (AtmosphereEntry)
{
DeployChute AND FireRetros;
}
'WHEN' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
C:\portholes>_
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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ESA got rather annoyed when I suggested to them that they should have asked NASA how to land on Mars rather than looking like total buffoons. I don't know why 🤔
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Hi All,
Mars seems to be the place where space probes go missing, so if we get a message from Mars by some hidden life form will it be "Quit dumping your junk on our patio!" when translated ?...
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Being a non-technical but very imitative species, they'll reverse engineer the hardware and discover that the transtator coils are the basis of subspace warp travel and build a starship. 
Marc
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