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Comment by blutack | Hacker News Reader

Just so people are aware that ESA weren't necessarily directly responsible for writing the software, the RTPU (the computer handling the landing sequencing) seems to have been outsourced to a company called Terma (via Thales).

I can't figure out if Terma wrote the landing software, but it seems likely from their press release [1] and they have the relevant specialties.

1: https://www.terma.com/space/exomars/

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Terma has said to danish media that they only developed the hardware, and had nothing to do with the software.

The software might have been outsourced to another company.

When will people learn not to outsource anything important?!

Seriously.

Look at NASA, they definitely haven't outsourced anything at all. They use all in house hardware and software to launch satellites or send astronauts to the ISS.

Not to be snarky, but NASA also had its fair share of failures. I mean ... it's rocket science after all.

Eh, is this sarcasm?

NASA has outsourced things since the original Apollo program, massively.

NASA has never brought a single astronaut into space on a fully NASA-made rocket. Especially with parts like these, they're commonky outsourced.

Of course it was sarcasm, I thought it was obvious. NASA outsources everything these days. I was responding to the idea that you should never outsource important things when EVERYTHING is outsourced, including astornaut launches

ESA didn't write the software, but surely they're responsible.

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