List of Software Bugs - Space Exploration

Space Exploration

• A booster went off course during launch, resulting in the destruction of NASA Mariner 1. This was the result of the failure of a transcriber to notice an overbar in a written specification for the guidance program, resulting in the coding of an incorrect formula in its FORTRAN software. (July 22, 1962). Note that the initial reporting of the cause of this bug was incorrect.
• The Russian Space Research Institute's Phobos 1 deactivated its attitude thrusters and could no longer properly orient its solar arrays or communicate with Earth, eventually depleting its batteries. (September 10, 1988).
• The European Space Agency's Ariane 5 Flight 501 was destroyed 40 seconds after takeoff (June 4, 1996). The US$1 billion prototype rocket self-destructed due to a bug in the on-board guidance software.
• NASA Mars Polar Lander was destroyed because its flight software mistook vibrations due to atmospheric turbulence for evidence that the vehicle had landed and shut off the engines 40 meters from the Martian surface (December 3, 1999).
  • Its sister spacecraft Mars Climate Orbiter was also destroyed, due to software on the ground generating commands in pound-force (lbf), while the orbiter expected newtons (N).
• A mis-sent command from Earth caused the software of the NASA Mars Global Surveyor to incorrectly assume that a motor had failed, causing it to point one of its batteries at the sun – subsequently overheating it. (November 2, 2006).
• NASA's Spirit rover became unresponsive on January 21, 2004, a few weeks after landing on Mars. Engineers found that too many files had accumulated in the rover's flash memory. It was restored to working condition after deleting unnecessary files.