5Miscellany
41. Redundancy is Important and May Be Critical in Certain Systems
Redundancy is a means by which one increases reliability, usually at the expense of space and/or weight, or both. I had an experience some years ago that perhaps will illustrate the point.
I was on a team consulting with a program manager for the Nimbus meteorological satellite. Our job was to look at the Nimbus design and carry out what at that time was called a design review and reliability assessment. I was “responsible” for the power supply and also the overall team activity. I came to the conclusion that there was a real danger (risk) associated with the power supply in the form of failure of the drive motor for the solar panels. This drive motor was a new design ...
