Comment by pmontra
1 day ago
Test flights.
My tests keep failing until I fix all of my code, then we deploy to production. If code fails in production than that's a problem.
We could say that rockets are not code. A test run of a Spaceship surely cost much more than a test run of any software on my laptop but tests are still tests. They are very likely to fail and there are things to learn from their failures.
Running a code test doesn't require firing a rocket.
How would you test a rocket?
You test components in isolation, you test integration of components, you run simulations of the entire rocket, and finally you test the rocket launch.
You’ll catch issues along the way, but you can’t catch all of them before a full launch test. That’s why there are launch tests.
This can get as far as the test plan is complete, multiply iterated under different interface conditions and thorough. And you are still relying upon the adherence of the simulated models to the physical reality.
Real tests do all of this at once with no option to escape reality.
Again, one thing is automating thorough software tests, another one is testing physical stuff.
This is the programmer fallacy if you have a bunch of code passing unit tests, it’s going to work when combined.
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Test code by running it.
Test a rocket by launching it.
I would consider these launches test launches. Production is when they include commercial payloads and humans.
In production? I don't disagree that tests 'in production' are sometimes necessary (canary tests), but most of the quirks are often fixed by then.
Honestly I thought they would be live testing fuel exchange in orbit by now. Seems pretty far from it sadly.
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launching a rocket is far more analogulous to shipping a release, than it is running code.
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Thank god you're not building rockets.
Testing to failure is pretty common in rocketry. If you don’t push the limits you’ll never really know where the limits are.
This has been SpaceX’s methodology for a long time now and has gotten them to the point where they have the most reliable western launch vehicles ever launching record amounts of mass to orbit each year at record low prices.
I truly hope that if you ever design a rocket yourself, that you will test it. I have no idea why you'd think testing is a terrible thing to do if it has to do with rockets.
I think we all agree that you need to test eventually. I do think most of us would already be double checking for leaks. It just seems one of the obvious things that may go wrong when putting it all together.
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Why precisely? Can you elaborate?