Software Error Doomed Japanese Hitomi Spacecraft

[garyc]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/software-error-doomed-japanese-hitomi-spacecraft/

Japan’s flagship astronomical satellite Hitomi, which launched successfully on February 17 but tumbled out of control five weeks later, may have been doomed by a basic engineering error. Confused about how it was oriented in space and trying to stop itself from spinning, Hitomi's control system apparently commanded a thruster jet to fire in the wrong direction — accelerating, rather than slowing, the craft's rotation.

On 28 April, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) declared the satellite, on which it had spent ¥31 billion (US$286 million), lost. At least ten pieces — including both solar-array paddles that had provided electrical power — broke off the satellite’s main body.

 

[Gordon_R]

Sigh, was just reading about the break-up, no idea that it had been a software glitch!?

Another one to add to the (sadly) long list of similar failures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_bugs

 

[Knyro]

They suck at X-ray satellites.

The rocked carrying ASTRO-E (launched in 2000) crashed at launch
The X-ray spectrometer on Suzaku (launched 2005) failed after a few weeks because of a helium leak
Now Hitomi failed