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Lockheed Martin Drops NOAA Satellite
An anonymous reader writes "Last Saturday, engineers at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale were rotating the NOAA-N spacecraft from vertical to horizontal when it slipped and fell - hard. SpaceRef has the story and a graphic photo of the damaged satellite."
And I thought I was pissed when I dropped my iBook...
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
Ouch that hurt... good to see that everything is locked down until a safety review is completed to prevent me from getting hurt again.
I can't begin to imagine the frustration for the people working on that project seeing their baby lying there like that. Note the two levels of failure. Even a well designed protocol can fail if the participants are sloppy on a regular basis. There's probably a moral for all of us there.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Well, I guess my worst day at work does not equal dropping a multi-million dollar satellite. But they now have a comittee to investigate, so that's good. I'm glad no one created a committee to investigate that time I dropped a machine while it was on, that drive no workee no more.
that nobody got hurt! Can you imagine the shock to someone standing next to it when it fell?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
(pointing at engineers with jaws dropped)
Ha Ha!
Homer says, "D'oh!"
happens so often its only a matter of time before it really hurts someone:
First, technicians from another satellite program... removed the bolts...without proper documentation.
several programs I have worked on have had near accidents because parts were "borrowed" without redtags being applied. Second, the NOAA team working today failed to follow the procedure to verify the configuration of the NOAA "turn over cart" since they had used it a few days earlier.
Complacency(sp?) Happens way to often in every job environment. And it takes a lot of discipline to force yourself to follow the procedures everytime day in/day out and beyond.
--Im an oven mitt, not an engineer! (SLArbys Radio Commercial)
Gravity Always Wins
How the heck are 24 bolts missing? Someone is sooooo fired over this one!
How funny there is guards staring at this goof up until they figure out what to do with it.
What's up with building satellites FIVE years in advance. I understand it takes a long time at stuff.. but really, the technology will be so different by 2008. Hell, robots will be running things.
NOAA-N Prime is under guard, all records have been impounded,
...and the workers responsible will be ass-pounded.
--riney
A conversation with my buddy Chris on this article...
Me: the satellite's name is NOAA-N Prime haha...it should have an autobot symbol
Chris: But the question is, what does it transform into?
Me: i think it's already in vehicle mode
Chris: Yeah, it damages its enemies by falling over on them and causing severe damage, according to the article
Chris: I'm not sure it deserves the title "autobot"
Chris: "NOAA-N Prime finally defeats the mighty Megatron by falling on its side on him. Megatron, not strong enough to lift NOAA-N Prime off of him, eventually gave up"
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
That's just, what, a 20G decelleration? Heck, my laptop can survive more than that. Here, watch m
Perhaps all those procedures .... are preventing people from thinking .... the workers in an average workshop - where people think instead of relying on procdures - rarely drop the most expensive item in the shop on the floor .....
...'cause it means that on the whole, no matter how bad a day I'm having, I can always remember: someone else had a far, far worse one.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I didn't do it.
The first impression of the photo is that the satellite tipped completly over from vertical standing on that white framework on the right. You can see another satellite standing up in that position in the background.
However the description does not match this, it says it fell only three feet, from an apparently horizontal position.
What I can't see is what was holding it up in that position. Was that fixture (the "roll over cart") removed? Or is it hidden behind it, or attached to the "bottom" (now on the right edge) or what? How exactly did the missing 24 bolts not become noticed until it was in this horizontal position?
Just curious for more details. Other people's expensive mistakes are always fascinating!
I feel sorry for the engineers who's work has been damaged, but I can't help but want to photoshop this. There is a desk complete with in-out boxes just to the left of the satellite. I think there needs to be a small pool of blood there to make this funny.
Bad news: we dropped a multi-million dollar satellite
Worse news: it landed on Phil, the only guy who knows how to fix it.
That's aweful. And probably gonna be damn expensive to fix. But looking at the picture, all I can imagine is watching a kitten or something bump up against it, watch it knock over, and have Bob Saget saying something so horrifically annoying that all I want to do is wish I was underneath that thing.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
From the article:
NOAA-N Prime is planned for launch in 2008.
and
The immediate actions concern safety (preventing the spacecraft from rolling, discharging the batteries, and depressurizing the propulsion system).
If the thing wasn't going to be launched for 5 years, why on earth was the propulsion system pressurized? Did they just happen to drop it during a propulsion test?
Barnes and Noble Drops Ebooks
Lockheed Martin Drops NOAA Satellite
Hee.
The efficiencey of private industry over the federal government. If NASA had developed that satelite it would have had to have waited until it got into space to be destroyed.
in other news, the little known Al-Bolt-Yeeda struck again today, setting back the production of the multi-billion dollar satellite untold weeks. This terrorist organization is better known for their previous activities with the Chicago Balcony Board (or CBB) as well as their activities in the Chicago Night Club Doors Committe (or CNCDC). Their activities are far ranging indeed if they can strike at the most technically sophisticated bolts we have today. I believe that they must be supported and protected by other countries to be able to strike so effectively; and that we should have a crusade against those countries in attempts to root them out. I would recomend invading those countries who have intimate bolt knowledge, and have been developing 'rival' bolts. These countries must be training Al-Bolt-Yeeda insurgents in an attempt to undermine the american bolt industry. These countries include: Syria.
>:-)
"this is the gloaming"
radiohead
One more example of why nerf-gun fights in the office are a bad idea.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
They should do what I did when I fried that bar code scanner at work that time; just put it back in the box at the bottom of the pile and pretend you know nothing about it.
You win again, gravity!
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
oopsey...
...until it happens to you. So next time you drop a multi-million-dollar satellite which is only 5 years from launch, you can take comfort in knowing that you made someone else feel better about their day. ;-)
We should be thankful that beheading is no longer allowed in the U.S...
Homer: I'll bash it good!
Marge: Homer, it's just a weather station.
As a robot, I'm deeply offended by this graphic photo. If you all find this type of imagery entertaining, then all you meatbags can just bite my shiny metal ass!
I, for one, am not surprised that a Nintendo of America designed satellite would face launch delays.
How many tacos would this be worth?
I'm guessing that this will basicly trigger a complete rebuild of the entire thing. Strip it down to it's components, rigorously test each part separately, replace those part that are damaged.
It sounds like a *LOT* of intensive manual work. Anyone have more of a clue than I do?
At least it didn't get into space before having an accident like this.
posted from command Central: All future satellite construction will be built in the vertical, checked in the vertical, and launched in the vertical, This decree will eliminate this problem.
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
eBay
With no disrepect intended, doesn't it look
like something from a British streetcorner,
repainted?
I do hope there's another prototype around
- so that this puppy's functionality won't
come online too late to be useful...
Eddie was pissed when I dropped my Toughbook down his stairs. Luckily, further examination revealed that the stairs had only taken 3 small dents, none of which were obvious to the casual observer.
The toughbook, of course, failed to notice.
Why would you carry around a computer that's so delicate you can't even nudge it off a table 40 or 50 times? It's just silly when your $1700 computer is less durable than a $30 dead-tree book. Don't put up with wimpy hardware.
This article from the same site has a few more details about the incident. The satellite was a polar-orbiting environmental satellite used to monitor weather and climate. It was upright when it fell.
Human/Ranger/Zangband
Vibration Test...Completed
Structural Load Test...Completed
Good to see they got those out of the way!
Lockheed Martin. This is what they sent me in reply to my sending them the link on the satellite being dropped. I've elided some information and am posting anonymously to protect them.
............... is extremely anal in their insistence on following procedures and reader/worker routines and QA buys at critical points, and lots of redundancy. This is an isolated case.
Lets look at this. These clowns modified a piece of support equipment without documentation and didn't record the fact that the equipment was missing parts. Then another gaggle of clowns failed to examine the item before use, (prior to use inspection) because they had used it " a few days ago". Sadly, I can see how it could happen. We try to prevent this kind of thing.
The new management paradigm for corporate operations within Lockheed Martin is "Lean" thinking.
This is some warmed over stew of Deming and systems analysis with a liberal amount of oriental mysticism and a dash of Bruce Lee. It is designed to make our executives "American Samurai of Business" (I kid you not.) It initially came from some rednecks in a Japanese car factory somewhere in the American South.
Basically you have some outside expert come in and examine your process. You describe your process to him and he draws it on the wall on a big sheet of brown paper. Then he crosses out any redundant steps to streamline the process. Inspections are, of course, non value added steps and are also redundant because the worker looked at the process while he was doing it, didn't he?
Our expert who was to tell us how to build better rockets had a PhD. in English, and wasn't really sure about the content of Newton's Laws of Motion. (I asked.) When I asked how someone who didn't comprehend basic first
principles of rockets could tell us how to build them, I was told that I didn't understand the process. (The fact that the guy was nude except for his crown was a tip off that I was being conned.)
To be sure, any systems analysis can improve a process, and I am sure that the testimonials from the Hondota plant were true, but the basic nature of the process must be taken into account during the analysis. There are different requirements for a factory that produces 10,000,000 units and can tolerate having several hundred thousand items recalled each year and a factory that produces 50 units, all of which must work the first time, without fail.
Also, if you screw up at Hondota Inc., the worst thing that can happen is that the wheels will fall off the car, someone will get killed and some lawyers will make lots of money. If we screw up, we may not get to go home. (How does one quantify the amount of "value added" of having the facility remain in existence?)
All of this escapes the attention of our upper management and they continue to attempt to try to make us into good little Hondota workers. After all, the shuttle could have gone into the dealer to have the tile fix service pack installed before landing.
Maybe Lockheed should be slapped with punitive damages because of this. It blows me away that they would willfully tear up proven processes regarding sattelite or space vehicle manufacturing.
You'll never get the management in any efficient manner - but you can get the industry that spawned this, so-called efficiency experts. Sue the hell out of them. Child Phsycologists have been sued successfully for creating false testimony regarding child abuse (non) cases, perhaps a financial incentive has to be present in the above industry so they are a little more careful about what they apply their advice to - assuming that the above is an accurate description.
Well, this photo certainly looks like on of those frikking Intel bunny men escaped from their clean room, only to be crushed by the NOAA-N Prime... Maybe their caused the accident in the first place, dancing around in a lab and all...
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
Top ten things leaner process management has done already:
Checked the mirror
Converted to metric
Voted on the basis of facts
Modeled the grid
Launched the Titanic
Kept insecticide safely
Considered wind shear
Audited unusual profits from government contracts
QCd Windows backdoors
Reviewed the threat from hijackers
dead when I shot him!