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From: REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Geostar failure modes
Message-ID: <209@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Jul-84 08:39:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.209
Posted: Fri Jul 20 08:39:00 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Jul-84 03:47:48 EDT
Lines: 10

From:  Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>

If the ground computer sysem crashes, does the whole navigation system
fail at one moment, leaving thousands of airplanes in flight suddenly
without location information? The other system with a computer in each
plane is more expensive but not prone to any common mode of failure
short of EMP from nuclear war. Would there be sufficient backup in the
ground computer system to avoid any remote chance of full system crash?
(Literally, lots of planes suddenly unable to dodge mountains they had
been counting on being able to dodge?)