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back to article Dying satellite sends boffins one last surprise before disappearing

Hitomi, the failed X-ray observatory sent up to space by Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency, peered deep into the heart of a galaxy to reveal hot bubbling plasma before it died. The satellite was launched in February with the aim of exploring high-energy activities in space, but lost contact with Earth a month later. Errors …

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  1. picturethis

    More space junk?

    "Errors caused Hitomi to spin wildly and its solar-panelled paddles snapped off, making restoration impossible."

    Am I the only one picturing multiple huge solar panels floating through space now waiting to hit something important?

    I think the NHTSA needs to get involved and mandate safety chains be used on future satellites to prevent such an occurrence from happening again ;)

    On a slightly different note, it's interesting to see the cultural difference with individual executives taking responsibility for the problems. (This probably wouldn't happen in any other culture). They have my respect.

    (An icon is needed for "sad and disappointed", none of the current ones seem appropriate)

    4 0 Reply
    1. JeffyPoooh
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      "Errors caused Hitomi to spin wildly..."

      I've read quite a bit about the failure containment / paranoid programming approach to software typically used with USA space missions. They're very good at it. Some of their concepts are simple brilliant. They pretty much don't even assume determinism.

      Everyone should do space mission software like NASA, JPL and so on.

      Hell, everyone should just do all software that way, period.

      4 0 Reply
      1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        Go

        @JeffyPoooh Re: "Errors caused Hitomi to spin wildly..."

        Sounds like an abstract for an El Reg article there....

        3 0 Reply
    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: More space junk?

      Not really, it was not that high orbit so residual atmosphere drag will get them down pretty soon.

      1 1 Reply
    3. cray74
      Reply Icon

      Re: More space junk?

      Am I the only one picturing multiple huge solar panels floating through space now waiting to hit something important?

      Hitomi's orbit ranges from 560 to 580km, which is under-populated. Most low orbit satellites tend to favor even lower orbits - the ISS is at 400km, for example, while Hubble is at 540km - or higher (700ish kilometers for Iridium and Cryosat). The failure rotational velocity of the solar panels was probably not enough to greatly shift the altitude of the debris.

      1 0 Reply
  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Three executive employees from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have agreed to take a ten per cent salary cut for four months following the mistake.

    DAFUCK? Clearly we are now entering Political Kevlar Vest Zone!

    The black hole acts as a “thermostat” and stops the galaxy growing, Prof McNamara said. The gas is too excited to clump together and form stars. If the galaxy grows too fast, the black hole swallows up more matter and releases more energy to fire up the hot plasma to prevent more matter being formed.

    I don't think I understand this. Something lost in translation?

    1 0 Reply
    1. vir
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      A clearer description might read: "much of the gas is too hot to coalesce and form stars. If the gas cools enough to allow more stars to start forming, the black hole absorbs them, releasing energy which heats the remaining gas and again inhibits star formation".

      8 0 Reply
      1. You aint sin me, roit
        Reply Icon

        Yes, the problem with the original text was the use of the word "matter" to indicates clumps of cooling matter, separate from the rest of the matter in the gas cloud..

        Everything in the cloud is "matter", just some of it is extremely hot and possibly in a form that we might not recognize. But it's still "matter".

        Until it reaches the event horizon, then all bets are off :)

        2 0 Reply
    2. Roq D. Kasba
      Reply Icon

      That'll pay for it

      Seriously, 10% pay cut for 4 months for 3 people is a pretty bizarre punishment.

      I doubt they planned to fuck up, so it's clearly accidental PLUS if it wasn't beyond their control, sack the fuckers. If their combined salaries are £300k, what's the point of a £10k saving (before benefits and bonuses and taxes etc)?

      3 0 Reply
      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge
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        Re: That'll pay for it

        what's the point of a £10k saving

        You are mistaking savings and punishment.

        4 1 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: That'll pay for it

        They just need to "save their face". Thereby set a laughable "punishment" for some, and everything then is business as usual. True mistakes will be hidden under the carpet, and nobody will truly pay for them.

        5 0 Reply
        1. DropBear
          Reply Icon
          WTF?

          Re: That'll pay for it

          It must be awfully nice to work in a place where fucking up in the absolute worst possible way and thereby wasting staggering amounts of money is only "punished" by withholding an insignificant amount of money for an insignificant amount of time. Hey, an idea - how about "you're fired with extreme prejudice including being kicked all the way down the stairwell effective immediately, or you can keep working here for the next ten years for free. Your choice."...?

          0 4 Reply
          1. TRT Silver badge
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            Re: That'll pay for it

            Because if you kick the mistake makers too hard, by firing them or making it impossible to continue with their jobs, then you lose not only the skills you've invested in but also the learning from the mistake. Do something wrong in the armed forces and you're often demoted - you have to earn your way back up.

            7 0 Reply
      3. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: That'll pay for it

        If it had been NK, the headline would have been - "Three employees were executed following the mistake."

        0 0 Reply
        1. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          Re: That'll pay for it

          Then reappeared 6 months later.

          3 0 Reply
  3. Ben Tasker

    Because if you kick the mistake makers too hard, by firing them or making it impossible to continue with their jobs, then you lose not only the skills you've invested in but also the learning from the mistake. Do something wrong in the armed forces and you're often demoted - you have to earn your way back up.

    Yup, an employee who's fucked up and been punished is usually still a more productive and useful asset to the company that an employee who hasn't yet fucked up and hasn't learnt to exercise a little more care. I'd rather someone who didn't fuck up because they'd learned to be careful than someone who's just got lucky so far.

    Firing is for the willfully incompetent/negligent and for those who never learn to exercise care. Everyone else should get the chance to learn from mistakes.

    And firing someone to "make a statement" (i.e. for political purposes) should probably be a sackable offence too IMO, as it's throwing away the company's investment in that person for no good reason.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Jeffrey Nonken
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      People who never make mistakes cannot learn from them, and will never grow.

      1 0 Reply
  4. Tikimon
    Thumb Up

    It's still Rocket Science!

    And it still ain't easy. Consider that the better we get at it, the more ambitious our goals and projects become. We're throwing spaceballs (heh) at Kuiper Belt objects now and getting back hi-res images from the perfect fly-bys. It's a long way from Sputnik.

    Screwups will happen, it's part of the process. Heads don't need to roll.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Medixstiff
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's still Rocket Science!

      "the more ambitious our goals and projects become"

      Yeah well where's our flying cars we were promised in the 70's?

      Friggin' traffic jams caused by friggin' moron's with a "me. me, me" mentality, not thinking that if you give some space to the car in front, traffic will flow better and other's won't have to break, because Mr or Mrs important decided to push into a space their car won't fit into.

      At least with my flying car I could go over the morons and drop something concrete on the roof to knock some common sense and courtesy into their thick skulls.

      0 0 Reply

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