OM wrote:

....Jorge, I thought Pat was really just joking with that one.

No, I was not joking, and here's why:
If each of the NASA space centers were using multiple programs to
determine how a satellite's orbit would end up... and they were all
using the _same_ programs, that would be great; as they could spot
something suspicious in the the solution one program showed if it varied
from the rest, and look into that aspect in more detail.
But having different space centers using different programs to try to
figure out the same thing is bound to cause communications problems if
one program comes up with a different solution than the others, and they
want to figure out _why_ that occurred.
Then people at two or more different NASA centers have to discuss
matters in regards to two or more different programs that they each are
not familiar with, as it's not the one they use at "their" space center.
At the very least that is going to cause inconvenience...at worst, it
could cause misunderstandings between the two centers that could cause a
mission to get screwed up...in much the way the Mars Climate Orbiter
mission did, as two separate teams had two different understandings of
where the spacecraft was and where it was going in relation to the
atmosphere of Mars.

Pat


======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
(if anyone sees the previous message, which Pat has since cancelled, this is a correction to that message, not a duplicate.) GDM