Northrop’s Software Sneeze

Northrop Grumman’s idea of impressing NASA apparently includes making its spacecraft behave like overcautious toddlers. On its debut Cygnus XL run to the ISS, the capsule decided to shut off its own engines early, not once, but twice, because its flight software got cold feet. The company spun it as a conservative “safeguard” doing its job. That’s technically true. So is saying the Titanic was a test of ocean floor navigation.

It gets better. This was a code problem. As in, the spacecraft just didn’t trust itself. This is supposed to inspire confidence? That’s rich coming from a defense prime now pitching itself as a launch provider with grand visions of vertical integration. Because nothing screams “we’ve got this” like software so fragile it BSODs mid-burn.