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Old December 10th 10, 04:18 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default Japanese can't get their maths right, Venus probe lost

On 12/10/2010 2:07 AM, Anonymous Remailer (austria) wrote:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1012/08akatsuki/

"We have found that the orbiter was not injected into the planned orbit
as a result of orbit estimation,"

In other words: we didn't get the maths right and fired the thrusters
at the wrong time...

This is simply embarrasing! Why didn't they ask NASA or ESA to verify
their calculations? Now they'll have to wait six more years for another
attempt and it's unlikely the craft will still be functioning then.


It could just be that the orbital entry engine burn shut down early.
I wouldn't ask NASA to give me any advice about how to put a spacecraft
into planetary orbit after the Mars Climate Orbiter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

Pat