[yashap]

Indeed, and it’s clearly stated in the article:

> Safemode is the satellite equivalent of a blue screen of death.

It’s about avoiding safemode, and more generally about the end-to-end QA/testing process for satellites before they’re sent up into orbit. It’s very clearly not about actual Windows BSODs, it’s just written in a tongue-in-cheek style. Those commenting about “wtf windows on a spacecraft” clearly didn’t read the article, just read the title.

FWIW I found the writing style engaging and the content interesting. I guess the title is a little click-bait-y, but not in a way that I minded much, and I probably wouldn’t have read an article titled “How to avoid safemode on a satellite.” It’s a fine line, but titles DO have to draw you in, otherwise you’ll never read the article.

Re: the article itself, I did think it was pretty wild that customers have to be informed of every incident where a satellite flips into safemode in TESTING! In real operations, sure, but in testing, that’s wild. Feels like having to report bugs caught in my local dev environment, that were never deployed to prod.

[GlenTheMachine]

This would be during formal testing, which is similar to what you might know as “acceptance testing”. The spacecraft doesn’t “enter safe mode” during development.

If you’re paying two billion $ for something you become very very interested in test design and test results.

Also, safe mode isn’t really the same as a BSOD. It’s a mode where the spacecraft decides something is wrong and disables a lot of functionality and focuses on pointing the solar panels at the sun and the antennas at the ground. It does not cease functioning - if that happens, you’ve probably lost your spacecraft. It is therefore VITALLY IMPORTANT that safe mode works, and a smart program manager tests the hell out of it.

[Brian_K_White]

So it's a bsod that switches to safe mode instead of halting.

We already got that it's not actually Windows and so not literally identical to bsod in every detail.

It's not the same as a common os safe mode either because it happens by itself as the last resort response to a problem, like a bsod. Not just on command.

[yashap]

Ah fair, definitely a very different environment than what I’ve worked in! Have only worked on SaaS, where all forms of testing (automated and manual) are a thing we do internally, without customer involvement. We’ll do things like turn features on/off for customers, have them provide feedback, but that’s more product feedback than them being part of the testing/QA process.

I have worked on software where individual customers pay millions for it, but not billions, and it’s also not a physical thing that can literally crash into earth or fly off into space if something goes wrong!

[sandworm101]

>> customers have to be informed of every incident where a satellite flips into safemode in TESTING!

Because the customers are almost certainly running their own metrics, tracking failure rates over time. An increasing rate of failures across a program is probably a sign of something going wrong at a higher level. Remember too that there is "testing" and testing. One is you playing around with the software at your workstation, the other is the more formal testing as monitored by the acceptance and standards people.