QuickSat to fail ANYTIME

[J Kinkaid]

drudgereport.com says NOAA anounced today that the very important forcasting tool QuickSat is going to fail at anytime, and the replacement isn't gonna be up until 2016, widening, watch and warning areas

[B Ozanne]

Is it going to fail like the Mars rovers that are still running or is it really going to fail?

[cdcollura]

Sometimes these things have what is called a TBO (time between overhauls) versus a true MTF (mean time between failure), which is routinely applied to aircraft engines.

With a TBO, the engine is inspected, repaired, and even replaced at so-many hours of use, even if it is working perfectly.

With a MTF, this is a mean value, and does not mean a failure is imminent when this time has been surpassed. Hard-drives have the same ratings, usually like 20,000 hours or so. But I've seen drives rated at 20,000 hours run continuously for 5 times that, yet others failed at 1,000 hours!

[Bob Schafer]

For the benefit of anyone else who Google's "QuickSat", it's actually spelled "QuikSCAT".