Why Is Software Development More Demanding in the Aerospace Industry?
An alumnus of Pennsylvania State University, John Wathen IV received his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the institution in 2017. While studying, he was a cadet in the Air Force ROTC program and received the Major Lewis Award. To become an airline pilot, John Moss Wathen IV has completed several aerospace courses, including Introduction to Software Engineering.
Engineering jobs — particularly those that involve software programming — have seen renewed interest in the previous decade as the frequency of commercial aerospace missions has increased. Some of the most difficult problems engineers encountered while designing software for the aerospace industry were end-user programs’ instability and high failure rate. The majority of individuals do not believe that such software will always work correctly.
While most software failures in consumer apps can have glitches, they can usually be resolved by simply restarting the computer, phone, or other devices. Such quick remedies are acceptable if lost is the last web page the user visited or less relevant data. Rebooting is seldom a possibility in mission-critical applications like flight. In such instances, the cost of software failure is extremely significant and can even be life-threatening.
Many companies also find it expensive and challenging to write all software programs for their products from scratch. These companies typically rely on third-party software functions and libraries. A popular misconception is that open-source software, frequently good and built for reuse, would alleviate this problem for aerospace applications. On the contrary, open-source libraries are rarely employed in mission-critical software applications. To ensure stability and the lack of hidden viruses or poor code, such projects often need all code built in-house.
Considering the aforementioned, it is reasonable to expect that the need for software development experts and tools will only continue to rise in the industry. As the complexity of future applications grows, the necessity for conceptualization as part of the software development process will also expand to minimize the chances of error.
