> Whitewashing the whole thing by saying there was an "anomaly" during deployment seems pretty weak. I would rather they be more upfront about it and say there was a failure of unknown origin that they're still investigating.
But ... that's what "anomaly" means -- a failure of unknown origin. It's just a concise way of saying it.
> Calling it an "anomaly" strongly implies that there was some sort of unexpected natural phenomena to blame ...
No, the word "anomaly", at least as used in space science, doesn't suggest that at all. In this context, anomaly means what idiopathic means in medicine -- an outcome of unknown origin.
'Calling it an "anomaly" strongly implies that there was some sort of unexpected natural phenomena to blame [to people who've mostly encountered the term watching too much Star Trek]'
But ... that's what "anomaly" means -- a failure of unknown origin. It's just a concise way of saying it.
> Calling it an "anomaly" strongly implies that there was some sort of unexpected natural phenomena to blame ...
No, the word "anomaly", at least as used in space science, doesn't suggest that at all. In this context, anomaly means what idiopathic means in medicine -- an outcome of unknown origin.