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November 07, 2006
Reminder for December 32nd: Update shuttle calendar software
Apparently, NASA is uncomfortable about flying the shuttle over a year end ...
“The interesting thing about the shuttle computers and the ground computers that support the shuttle is that they were never envisioned to fly through a year-end changeover,” says NASA’s shuttle chief Wayne Hale here at the agency’s Johnson Space Center. “So the shuttle computers actually keep counting and they believe that it is Day 366 instead of Day 1 of the New Year.”
Wha ...? They were never envisioned to fly through a year-end changeover? I would say that's quite an interesting design quirk for a multi-billion dollar project. So for an average 12 day mission, one third of December is basically no-fly time. If the launch is delayed much beyond the 7th of December, NASA may delay until 2007. They're so eager for this NOT to happen that they may bump the launch up a day to the 6th of December. Presumably that's perfectly safe, and any delays won't cost too much anyway.
Posted by daen at November 7, 2006 10:42 PM
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