Berlin

November 4 & 5, 2024

New York

September 4 & 5, 2024

London

June 16 & 17, 2025

Explosive overflow: Lessons from rocket science

Thirty-nine seconds after launch, the Ariane 5 rocket exploded—caused by software design errors. In this talk, Mark analyzes these historical flaws to explore key lessons in resilience and product security. We'll discuss testing, validation, legacy code, design assumptions, and the challenge of proving when things don’t go wrong.

Speakers: Mark El-Khoury

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October 08, 2024

Thirty nine seconds after its launch towards space, rocket no. 501 erupted into a scintillating fireball.

No casualties were reported other than perhaps the ego of a few software engineers: The 1996 inaugural flight of the Ariane 5 rocket was cut short due to a series of software design missteps. We’ll analyze these historical flaws to discuss resilience and product security; Touching on the nuance of testing, validation, legacy code, assumptions during design, and, for when things don’t blow up, the unique challenge of proving that a negative event did not occur.