Forensic study of the Curiosity Flight Software anomalies

Abstract

Summary form only given. This paper provides a summary of a task that was undertaken at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to review the anomalies captured in the “Problem Failure Reporting” database for the Curiosity Flight Software and identify the critical areas for improvement in the software design and development processes across the flight projects. The team reviewed a significant portion of the thousands of PFR's that were recorded in this database and identified their corresponding defect signatures: where the defect had been inserted and the cracks it had fallen through during the remainder of the development and testing phases. Of particular interest were the defects that had the longest distance from injection to detection and those which had the highest severity. Further analyses such as identification of modules with the highest defect density and detection and testing mechanisms with inadequate detection rates were also conducted. The results obtained to date are compelling and their implications may include significant changes and upgrades to the current requirements engineering and testing methodologies employed at JPL.