Incident: Intentional Parachute Failure Test on Blue Origin's New Shepard

Published Date: 2016-05-27

Postmortem Analysis
Timeline 1. The software failure incident of intentionally failing the parachute during a test flight by Blue Origin happened in May 2016 [Article 43814].
System unknown
Responsible Organization 1. Blue Origin - Blue Origin planned to intentionally fail a parachute during a test flight to demonstrate their ability to handle that failure scenario, which can be considered a software failure incident [43814].
Impacted Organization 1. Blue Origin [43814] 2. SpaceX [43814]
Software Causes 1. unknown
Non-software Causes unknown
Impacts 1. The intentional failure of the parachute during the Blue Origin test flight impacted the software system by testing the team's ability to handle the failure scenario [43814].
Preventions 1. Proper testing and validation of the software before the test flight could have potentially prevented the intentional failure of the parachute during the Blue Origin mission [43814]. 2. Implementing robust error handling mechanisms within the software to ensure safe handling of failure scenarios could have helped prevent the software failure incident [43814].
Fixes 1. Conducting thorough testing and simulations to identify and address potential failure scenarios [43814] 2. Implementing robust and well-understood software systems to ensure safety and reliability [43814]
References 1. Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin and Amazon, provided information about the intentional software failure incident in the Blue Origin spacecraft [43814].

Software Taxonomy of Faults

Category Option Rationale
Recurring unknown The articles do not mention any specific software failure incidents happening again at either one organization or multiple organizations. Therefore, the information related to the software failure incident recurrence within the same organization or across multiple organizations is unknown.
Phase (Design/Operation) unknown (a) The article does not mention any software failure incident related to the design phase. (b) The article does not mention any software failure incident related to the operation phase.
Boundary (Internal/External) unknown The articles do not provide information about a software failure incident related to either within_system or outside_system factors.
Nature (Human/Non-human) unknown (a) The articles do not mention any software failure incident related to non-human actions or factors introduced without human participation. (b) The articles do not mention any software failure incident related to human actions or factors introduced by human actions.
Dimension (Hardware/Software) unknown The articles do not provide information about a software failure incident related to either hardware or software.
Objective (Malicious/Non-malicious) non-malicious (a) The objective of the software failure incident was non-malicious. Blue Origin planned to intentionally crash one of its spacecraft by landing with an intentionally failed parachute in order to test the ability of the team to handle that failure scenario [43814]. This was a deliberate decision by Jeff Bezos to demonstrate the company's ability to safely handle such failure scenarios and improve the understanding and robustness of their vehicles.
Intent (Poor/Accidental Decisions) unknown [43814] The intent of the software failure incident in the article is related to intentional decisions made by Blue Origin to deliberately crash one of its spacecraft during a test flight. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of Blue Origin, announced plans to stress the crew capsule by landing with intentionally failed parachutes to demonstrate the team's ability to safely handle such failure scenarios. This deliberate failure is aimed at testing and improving the company's ability to deal with unexpected situations, indicating an intentional decision to induce a software failure incident for testing purposes.
Capability (Incompetence/Accidental) unknown (a) The articles do not mention any software failure incident related to development incompetence. (b) Blue Origin plans to intentionally fail a parachute during a test flight to demonstrate their ability to safely handle that failure scenario. This intentional failure is not due to development incompetence but is planned as part of the test flight to assess the team's ability to deal with such scenarios [43814].
Duration unknown The articles do not mention any software failure incident related to either a permanent or temporary duration. Therefore, the duration of the software failure incident in the articles is unknown.
Behaviour crash, other (a) crash: The article mentions a deliberate crash test planned by Blue Origin for its New Shepard spaceship. The company plans to intentionally fail the parachute during the next test flight to demonstrate their ability to safely handle that failure scenario, which can be considered a form of crashing the system [43814]. (b) omission: There is no specific mention of a software failure incident related to omission in the provided article. (c) timing: The article does not discuss any software failure incident related to timing issues. (d) value: The article does not provide information about a software failure incident related to the system performing its intended functions incorrectly. (e) byzantine: The article does not mention any byzantine behavior related to a software failure incident. (f) other: The other behavior mentioned in the article is the deliberate testing of a failure scenario by intentionally failing the parachute during the test flight of the New Shepard spaceship by Blue Origin [43814].

IoT System Layer

Layer Option Rationale
Perception None None
Communication None None
Application None None

Other Details

Category Option Rationale
Consequence unknown The articles do not provide information about a software failure incident resulting in any of the specified consequences (a) to (i). Therefore, the consequence of the software failure incident in the articles is 'unknown'.
Domain knowledge (a) The failed system mentioned in the articles is related to the space industry, specifically the development of reusable rockets by companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX. Blue Origin's New Shepard spaceship and SpaceX's rockets are part of the space industry aimed at reducing costs and waste in space travel [Article 43814].

Sources

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