Posted on 07/18/2013 10:55:28 AM PDT by null and void
Human error to blame for blast
A few weeks back, a Russian rocket called “Proton-M” exploded over a spaceport in Kazakhstan a few seconds after it launched.
[scary video at link]
The rocket was carrying three navigation satellites into space and fortunately was unmanned (no one on the ground was injured either). It reached a height of 1 km before disintegrating and then falling back to the Earth, piece by piece.
An investigation into the who, what, and why behind this massive blast was launched and this past week, it was closed. The result?
Human error.
Investigators found that the rocket’s angular velocity sensors had been installed upside down. An easy mistake to make, one would suppose, except for the minor fact that they had arrows on them showing which way was up and which way was down.
As a result of the misplacement of these sensors, the flight control system was getting the wrong information about the rocket’s position. When it tried to correct things, it swung out of control and exploded.
The person responsible for this mistake was an inexperienced technician. What’s more, his work, records indicate, was never double-checked. Even if it had been fixed, however, the rocket was still doomed, as the report also details an engine fire started when the rocket first took off. No indication as to why that happened has been determined yet.
As if all of this isn’t already bad enough, the three satellites that burned up were not insured. Barring any setback, Russia plans on simply moving forward from this mess, having since announced plans to launch two replacement satellites this fall from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
Story via: americaspace.com
“The government way.”
We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.
Same old, same old.
Maybe the tech and the inspector had to bend over to read the label, so from that perspective, it look right.
Bfl for root cause analysis and keyed assemblies
That’s actually (or was) a saying in Czechoslovakia......
Has this hapless person been executed?
Looks like my modified bottle rockets on the fourth of July.
No. They were too concerned with muslim outreach.
but the sensor only fits in one way ,LOL
Not being a rocket scientist and all, what could the range safety officer do if the destruct package was ripped off during launch? Aren’t they radio triggered or something? Scramble jets to shoot it down? What? - Just asking.
Looks like my modified bottle rockets on the fourth of July.
They should be very afraid. Czar Vlad will not be amused.
Design 101: it should not be possible to insert a component in an orientation other than the correct one.
It must have been pointing to the door when it was on it's side. ;-)
'SI Oops' - A short 3-act play
ACT I - A $125 million spacecraft completes a perilous 10-month journey through space to arrive at the planet Mars. The NASA spacecraft receives its maneuvering instructions that should put it into orbit around the red planet, but, instead, it proceeds to do a flaming swan dive into the Martian surface.
ACT II - NASA convenes three different investigating panels including an internal panel at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Along the corridors at the Pasadena laboratory, late into each night, hundreds of engineers in their offices huddle over their computer terminals reviewing, bit by bit, all of the computer codes, electronic schematics, test data, and telemetry dumps trying to find the cause of this terrible scientific loss. Suddenly, echoing through the corridors, up and down the stairwells, around the corners, a single agonizing scream -
"Aaaawwwwww sssshhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeettttttt....!!!!!!!!!"
ACT III - Excerpts from a CNN News release, September 30, 1999 -
"(CNN) -- NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because one engineering team used metric units while another used English units for a key spacecraft operation, according to a review finding released Thursday. For that reason, information failed to transfer between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team at Lockheed Martin in Colorado and the mission navigation team in California. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft."
"'People sometimes make errors,' said Edward Weiler, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science in a written statement.'
"'Our inability to recognize and correct this simple error has had major implications,' said JPL Director Edward Stone."
No cast party was planned.
Never underestimate the resolve of a technician who wants to leave work on time on a Friday. Or more simply put: "Don't force it...get a bigger hammer!"
It was widespread throughout the USSR ...
... and coming soon to the USSA.
Here, hold muh vodka.
That's interesting, because the rocket flew upside down.
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