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NASA Releases Failure Report On Outback Crash
cybrpnk2 writes "In a Friday news release, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has issued Part 1 and Part 2 of an excellent and very interesting failure review on the April 28 failed balloon launch of the Nuclear Compton Telescope at Alice Springs, Australia. Bottom line: make sure you don't need a gorilla to pull the payload release handle at balloon launch; if the release mechanism does fail then make sure your safety cables are sized for lift loads and a swinging payload, not just static hanging payload weight; and oh yeah — keep people and vehicles out of the downwind flight path. One spectator was nearly crushed while running from his SUV that was hit and flipped (Figure 29, Vol I). At least nobody ordered video evidence destroyed."
Hire a competent engineer to design your balloon!
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
So, is the video on the net?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
First, an Australian wouldn't call the car involved an SUV, but rather a 4WD (4 wheel drive).
Secondly, it doesn't seem like an amazing story. They saw some spectators were in the way, so they tried to quickly move it all and they had problems doing this. The only real concerns that I had with the operation was lack of direction given to the spectators as to where they should go to stay out of harm's way and the campaign manager not being organised enough to know the emergency services number in Australia. No, it is not 911. It is also not what they said it was in the NASA report "0". It is in fact 000 or 112 if you are using a mobile (cell) phone.
Finally, what is with the trolling in the summary about video evidence being destroyed. That has nothing to do with this story.
Am I the only one who expected the final link of the summary to take me to video of the mishap and not some crap about the Ft. Hood shooting?
Wow, way to throw in a totally unrelated remark about the tragic Fort Hood shooting. It doesn't have anything to do with the story, and is just a pointless jab.
But... I was a military investigator, and I will tell you that the military is stupid about preserving evidence. People are trained to take charge and make decisions. This is contrary to what you need with crime scenes, which is preservation of evidence. But ... what the sergeant might have been thinking is that is was inappropriate to the record the shooting or maybe he was worried about it getting on Youtube. Fortunately, I don't think the deletion won't keep anybody from prosecuting the guy (although that won't stop the defense attorney from suggesting that the video might have had the evidence that would exhonerate his client).
But many Slashdot commentors second guess police (and really, everybody), and I can tell you there is no sound legal advice or police procedures advice that can be found on Slashdot. So, get off your horse.
and oh yeah — keep people and vehicles out of the downwind flight path
Thankfully no one was seriously injured or killed. It's been fifty years today since the infamous Nedelin Disaster happened at the Baikonur cosmodrome. It shocks me that as recently as 15 years ago these sort of catastrophes happened.
At least nobody ordered video evidence destroyed.
Given the above incidents and their cover-ups, I'd agree. We must study these mistakes, own up to them and learn from them.
My work here is dung.
Just more evidence NASA has lost its cool. (top engineering talent)
Excuse me, but can anyone tell me the significance of the link to the soldier who was ordered to erase the video of Major Hasan's murders? This has what do with NASA now? The video was erased because it wouldn't look good on the evening news to show him shouting 'Allahu akbar' as he killed American soldiers. Or is this just some sort of post-ironic offhand hipster comment that nobody can understand, including the story submitter?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I've got to say, lots of times the "from the ____ dept." things are stupid but this one is actually pretty good.
After reading through the whole report, the most surprising thing is the design of the launch mechanism. The basic setup was that the launch was done from a moving crane truck. The truck was equipped with special outrigger wheels, so it could handle some side load without rolling over, and a platform for the "launch director", who was supposed to release the payload by yanking on a strap attached to a cable, pulley, and pin. The launch setup is that the balloon is inflated, allowed to rise, and then the crane truck. which is carrying the payload, tries to get under the balloon, chasing the balloon if necessary. When the payload is in position, the launch director yanks the strap and releases the payload.
This is obviously a setup which is highly dependent on what the wind does during the launch process. Some of the time, the wind is not going to cooperate, and an abort will be required. That's to be expected. But this time, they didn't abort until it was far too late.
During the process of chasing the balloon, the stresses on the restraint system were about 3x higher than at rest. It would have taken a 300 pound pull to release the pin; this was tested after the event. The guy who was supposed to pull the strap, while standing on a moving platform atop the crane truck, wasn't even wearing gloves. There was no backup system for releasing the payload. The payload eventually released when the crane truck reached the airport perimeter fence and had to stop. The wind forces from the balloon were then great enough to tear off a mounting plate on the truck, releasing the payload, which plowed through the fence and wiped out an SUV.
They didn't have an explosive bolt system to release the payload. The launch system used remote controlled pyrotechnics for releasing the balloon's restraining ring, and for the balloon-release abort system, so they already had all the systems and procedures in place for using pyrotechnics. But the main launch function was a guy pulling a strap.
There's clear video of the incident. This is useful to watch. When the payload tears loose from the crane, the crane truck is facing 90 degrees from the wind direction and stuck at the fence line. The crane boom is under high sideways stress. The abort system should have been triggered when the truck got into that situation, but it wasn't. (An abort prior to release loses the balloon and saves the expensive payload.) But the person with the abort button (the "campaign manager") and the guy trying to pull the release strap (the "launch director") were in different places and not coordinated, so when things went wrong, the abort didn't happen until after the payload had come loose and wiped out the perimeter fence and an SUV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34cypuq8iSQ
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Is it just me, or does this accident report seem to point out that NASA is a hugely bloated organization? Pages and pages just of signatures of guys in the chain of command. One Hundred Twenty Seven pages analyzing something about as complicated as a swing set. Seems about ten times as long as it should be.
MIT professor shows how it should be done (relevant bit begins around 12m45sec).
If you watch a bit more of the video, he does talk a bit about the delicacy of the operation, including the danger posed by the wind.
If the launch protocol includes "some dude will chase after the balloon with an ungainly hacked-up truck" then something is fucked up. The report never even comments on this!
For extra badness: instead of putting the launch dude in the driver seat and giving him a launch button, you have him standing on a platform that blocks the driver's view. He tries to control the truck by shouting orders to the driver while the truck drives over rough ground. Assuming he doesn't fall out and get run over, he is supposed to yank on a cable when he gets the gut feeling that things are about right.
How about this: Put a cable on the drop-away collar that is just below the filled portion of the balloon, and another on the bottom of the payload. Play out enough of the upper cable to get the balloon to a 45-degree angle. Play out just a bit of the other cable, letting the payload rise 10 to 30 feet up. Signal the collar to cut loose, dropping safely apart from the payload. Let the baloon rise until it is as vertical as the wind will allow. Play out more of the remaining cable as required to avoid a pendulum-style crash. Eliminate tension on the remaining cable (via clutch/brake) to avoid a jolt; the payload will begin rising rapidly. Signal that cable to be cut loose from the payload.
The excellent (Australian) ABC science program "Catalyst" shot the story of the crash as part of the article on the launch. I remember seeing this a few months ago. Very sad to watch but also awe inspiring just how much payload these huge balloons can hoist into the sky. The SUV get walloped pretty badly!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
That ballon really wrecked things up.
Straight out of Compton indeed.