NASA email storm strikes space agencies worldwide

EXCLUSIVE Everybody loves a good email storm. But an insecure email distribution list accidental spamming space agencies across the planet is undoubtedly one for the record books.

Someone tell DOGE to rehire whoever maintains this email list

NASA’s Materials And Processes Technical Information System (MAPTIS) is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to put a payload into space. For many agencies, checking the materials being used against the contents of MAPTIS is part of the qualification procedure.

MAPTIS is used by space agencies worldwide. Its users also include academia and commercial space providers.

Say you wanted to know how the materials selected would behave in space. The data is probably going to be in MAPTIS. Physical and structural properties? MAPTIS again. How to configure an email distribution list? Ah, now that isn’t something MAPTIS knows about, as evidenced by a recent unfortunate event.

As Reg readers know, an email distribution list is a set of email addresses to which a message can be sent, much like a contact group. These are usually controlled and secured to prevent unauthorized access.

According to a space agency source, a user managed to accidentally send a message to a MAPTIS insecure email distribution list, and the result was … not good.

“By the time he realizes,” our source explained, “he has spammed everyone in almost every space agency who works on flight qualifications – half the planet was replying to all asking to be removed from the list.

The incident could almost have been a space-age version of The Register‘s Who, Me? tech mishaps column.

“The funny part was someone saying, ‘Someone tell DOGE to rehire whoever maintains this email list.’ Followed by other people saying stuff like, ‘Just forward the entire email chain to DOGE.'”

DOGE is the now Department of Government Efficiency, headed – sort of – by billionaire Elon Musk, with the avowed intent of removing waste and unnecessary functions from the US administration.

Recently, DOGE fired then rehired staffers from the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), but we’re sure that an overzealous application of the resource scalpel has nothing to do with the MAPTIS email whoopsie.

The Register asked NASA to provide details on the maintenance of email distribution lists. The US space agency has not yet responded. ®