Kamal Ghorui
NASA Artemis II moon mission is launched and hours after the liftoff, it appears that the astronauts’ crew – Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialists Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch – are having some software-related problems, particularly with Microsoft Office and that too both new and classic.According to a post by The Verge tech journalist Tom Warren on X (formerly Twitter), during NASA’s live Artemis II Orion feed, ground control and the crew aboard the Orion spacecraft were caught dealing with a Microsoft Outlook error, deep in space.
Audio clip of conversation going viral
In an audio clip from the mission’s live feed, a ground controller can be heard walking the crew through a remote IT fix. It is similar to the kind of exchange like a corporate help desk.“We suspect the issue with your PCD may be Optimus software,” a voice from the ground says, adding, “We were able to connect to PCD1 — we can see it on the network — so with your go, we can remote in and take a look directly.”“Yeah, go for it,” a male crew member replies. He then says, “And then I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working.”
NASA uses Windows in space
The Orion spacecraft runs on standard laptop computers known as the Portable Computer System (PCS), and those laptops run Windows. NASA flight controller and instructor Robert Frost explained the reasoning plainly in a post on Quora (via Forbes).“A Windows laptop is used for the same reasons a majority of people that use computers use Windows. It is a system that people are already familiar with. Why make them learn a new operating system,” he reportedly wrote.Frost estimated that roughly 80% of astronauts have never used UNIX or Linux outside of the ISS interface, making familiar software a practical and sensible choice.
