I heard tell that Ada was to blame for the Ariane V disaster. Is this true?
The short answer is “No”. Here’s the long answer: The software for the Inertial Reference System (IRS) on the Ariane 5 was identical to the software used successfully on the Ariane 4 rocket. Basically, the developers took an “Off The Shelf” part (the IRS) that consisted of hardware and software, the design of which was used successfully on the Ariane 4 project, and bolted it onto the Ariane 5 rocket completely untested. The Ariane 5 rocket had a substantially different flight profile than the Ariane 4 was capable of. When the rocket started its flight, it moved at angles that were substantially larger than the Ariane 4 flight path would generate. The inertial data exceeded the range limits of the Ariane 4 software. The system was designed with a dual-redundant computer (two processor boards that are identical, running identical software.) One part of the software in question was performing calculations on the inertial data and needed to do so repeatedly in a very small amount of time.
Related Questions
- I have heard of an organization called VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster), what is the difference between them and the MCTF?
- Ive heard the DoD is dropping all Military standards to reduce costs, doesn that mean the mandate to use Ada goes away too?
- I heard tell that Ada was to blame for the Ariane V disaster. Is this true?
