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Satellite Tip-Over Mishap Due to Missing Bolts
cradle writes "On September 6th, the $239 Million Dollar NOAA N-Prime Satellite toppled over and crashed to the floor of Lockheed Martin Space Systems' factory in Sunnyvale, CA, as it was being repositioned to replace an instrument. Today NASA released their report on the cause of the accident. It seems somebody forgot to check whether it was bolted down: '... during an operation that required repositioning (rotating) the
TIROS NOAA N-PRIME spacecraft from a vertical to a horizontal position, the spacecraft
slipped from the Turn-Over Cart (TOC) and fell to the floor. The spacecraft fell because the
TIROS adapter plate to which it was mounted was not bolted to the TOC adapter plate with the
required 24 bolts. The bolts were removed from the TOC by another project while the cart was
in a common staging area, an activity which was not communicated to the NOAA project team.'"
I bet the wise guy who decided to do that is 'bolting' right now. ;D
That's exactly what they said had happened right after the accident. A detailed study of the cause is always in order, but I'm surprised that it took a year to verify what they apparently knew at that outset.
If I was "repositioning" a $239,000,000.00 piece of hardware, I would visually check the bolts before starting the rotation. I would also check every other piece of safety equipment... twice. If the bolts were there, I would probably check the torque on them, if I hadn't tightened them myself.
Jeeeez, people, this isn't rocket science. Well actually it is rocket science, but that's the difference between rocket science and stuff that blows up on the pad.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
You're inside or outside. Stop running through the door. We're not trying to air condition the whole street.
Rinse off your dishes when you're done eating.
Don't sass back to your teacher.
Brush your teeth before bed.
Put things back where you found them.
JUMPIN' JESUS, PUT THE FUCKING BOLTS BACK IN THE 230 MILLION DOLLAR SATELLITE!!!
As somebody who has personally watched stuff fall off of test tables as they rotate to vertical I can definitively say that that the sinking feeling in your stomache as the equipment slowly topples off the stand is exceeded only by the sinking feeling in your bowels when it shatters on the ground.
I can only imagine the multiplicative factor involved when it's a $240M satellite instead of a $20K prototype.
As for why they took a year to report out on the cause...the thing cost 240 million frickin' dollars! I'm sure the managers wanted more of an answer as to why it's in pieces on the ground than "Uh...we dropped it". Maybe they wanted to know "why it was dropped" and "how it was dropped" and "what is the likelyhood that a thing will be dropped again" and "where does that tech who dropped it live?"
-Pinkoir