Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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)
How the heck are 24 bolts missing? Someone is sooooo fired over this one!
And it will probably be the technician who removed them and not the manager who ordered it done.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
If the manager tells someone to make a change, documents it, and the guy has to go pick up his kids and doesn't get to it that day... you have problems. Documentation should be done only after a change is made, and then by someone who made (or at least witnessed) the change.
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
From your description, it really sounds like it did fall over from a nearly vertical position. And that is certainly what it looks like from the pictures. It slid off that flat white surface to the right.
The article text kind of implied that it only dropped 3 feet, as though it was horizontal and then the top dropped to the floor. Perhaps they were trying to minimize how bad it sounds.
Middle manager? No, I don't manage anybody. I'm just an employee who hopes that when I use a piece of equiptment, it will work as expected, and not crush/mangle/electrocute my ass! You don't document critical changes, oh, whenever you get around to it. You do it immediately after you make the changes, or in anticipation of the change, so the reactor doesn't spew acid through the missing gaskets, or the bus doesn't drive off with a missing brake line, or the multi-ton satellite doesn't fall on somebody. It IS the employee's responsibility to work according to protocol; if he doesn't, he's responsible for the consequences (and, as I said, if the supervisor allows shit like this to happen routinely, he should be fired as well). And yes, some protocols are unrealistic, but then he should tell his supervisor, and not just do whatever he wants.
If you don't like being ultimately responsible for the consequences of your actions, that's your business; but I sure as hell wouldn't want you working in the same company as me.