https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/24/mars-probe-crashed-because-it-misjudged-where-the-ground-was/
Engadget Full RSS Feed / 2016-11-24 19:24
The European Space Agency believes that it knows what caused its Schiaparelli lander to crash on the surface of Mars. It turns out that the spacecraft was hurtling towards the ground perfectly well until it, uh, forgot where the ground actually was. A sensor tasked with determining its altitude failed for a single second, but that was long enough to wreck the entire mission. Since the vessel believed that it had already arrived, it ran through the rest of the landing process and activated the on-ground sensors.
The inquest as to what caused the failure is still ongoing and may not be resolved for the better part of a year. But officials believe that, specifically, Schiaparelli's inertial measurement unit was oversaturated for a second, which told the system that it was already below ground. As a consequence, the lander fired its parachute, ejected its heat shield and fired its braking thrusters all at once while still 2.3 miles above the surface.....
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