Hi all...!
As engineers we all know that, worldwide we are following different unit standards in different countries as per our convenience.....more than the convenience it is confusing all time.....
Oops.....!!!! here is one of the costliest mistakes in the engineering history caused by this simple unit conversion....!
The simplified statement is that, NASA lost $125 million in 1999 because the engineers failed to convert the units from English to Metric.
The brief outline of the mistake is as follows....
The $125 million satellite was supposed to observe the weather on Mars. But it disappeared before it could reach into a stable orbit...!???
Oh God...! $125 million dollars.....how it could go in vain....???
A NASA review board found that the problem was in the software controlling the thrusters.
The software calculated the force that the thrusters needed to exert in pounds of force (English unit). A separate piece of software took in the data assuming it was in the metric unit: Newtons.
The entire thing was a miscommunication between the propulsion engineers at Lockheed Martin who built the craft and the engineers at NASA.
The propulsion engineers usually express the force in pounds but actually, the force should be converted into Newtons for space missions.
Although the engineers at NASA should ideally have verified that the conversion had been done,but they didn't.
Ultimately, the orbiter came within 37 miles of the surface of Mars when it should ideally have been strictly above 53. So it is something around 16 miles close to the Mars surface..
\
The humongous friction at that altitude was enough to tear the satellite apart....
The only good thing that came off this incident is that the teachers could cite this incident to let their students know of how writing appropriate units is extremely important unless they were willing to lose $125 million....!
As engineers we all know that, worldwide we are following different unit standards in different countries as per our convenience.....more than the convenience it is confusing all time.....
Oops.....!!!! here is one of the costliest mistakes in the engineering history caused by this simple unit conversion....!
The simplified statement is that, NASA lost $125 million in 1999 because the engineers failed to convert the units from English to Metric.
The brief outline of the mistake is as follows....
The $125 million satellite was supposed to observe the weather on Mars. But it disappeared before it could reach into a stable orbit...!???
Oh God...! $125 million dollars.....how it could go in vain....???
A NASA review board found that the problem was in the software controlling the thrusters.
The software calculated the force that the thrusters needed to exert in pounds of force (English unit). A separate piece of software took in the data assuming it was in the metric unit: Newtons.
The entire thing was a miscommunication between the propulsion engineers at Lockheed Martin who built the craft and the engineers at NASA.
The propulsion engineers usually express the force in pounds but actually, the force should be converted into Newtons for space missions.
Although the engineers at NASA should ideally have verified that the conversion had been done,but they didn't.
Ultimately, the orbiter came within 37 miles of the surface of Mars when it should ideally have been strictly above 53. So it is something around 16 miles close to the Mars surface..
\
The humongous friction at that altitude was enough to tear the satellite apart....
The only good thing that came off this incident is that the teachers could cite this incident to let their students know of how writing appropriate units is extremely important unless they were willing to lose $125 million....!
Yeah... Unit conversion is very important.. Small mistakes will give big effects..
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely....
ReplyDeleteyeah!
ReplyDeleteAccording to study OK .BT wt the realtion between unit of cnvervation and mars .can u give briefs explantion
ReplyDeleteYes choudhary...actually that was a space craft sent to mars on a purpose of inspecting weather conditions which I mentioned above. and the relation between unit conversion and mars is that the craft should not be so close to the mars and it is designed to be at a certain distance from the surface of mars. but due to the failure of unit conversion the specified distance could not be achieved and instead it went further deep and close to the martian surface.the mars climate orbiter came within 37 miles of the martian surface. simulations showed that, at any altitude lower than 53 miles, atmospheric friction would tear the fragile craft apart.that is how the craft's life got over.
ReplyDelete