MAJOR ELEMENTS. J. Edmunson 1 , B. A. Cohen 2 , and M. N. Spilde 3 , 1 NASA Postdoctoral Program, Marshall Space Flight Center (National Space Science and Technology Center, Huntsville AL 35805, [email protected]), 2 Marshall Space Flight Center (Huntsville AL 35812, [email protected]), 3 Institute of Meteoritics (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM 87131, [email protected]).

Flight Data Recorders (Black Boxes) generate data that is collected on an embedded memory device. A well-known difficulty with these devices is that the embedded memory device runs out of space. The worry of getting into this problematical situation compels the software of the flight data recorder to operate in a watchful mode it constantly makes efforts to minimize the use of memory space; oth...