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Could a Dirty Rag Take Out a $2 Billion Satellite?
An anonymous reader writes "The alleged rescue of a U.S. military communications satellite underscores some of the weaknesses in U.S. space efforts. Quoting: 'The seven-ton “AEHF-1,” part of a planned six-satellite constellation meant to support radio communication between far-flung U.S. military units, had been in orbit just one day when the problems began. The satellite started out in a highly-elliptical, temporary orbit. The plan was to use the spacecraft’s on-board engine to boost it to a permanent, geo-stationary orbit. But when the Air Force space operators at Los Angeles Air Force Base activated the engine, nothing happened. The Government Accountability Office would later blame the failure on a rag left inside a fuel line by a Lockheed worker.'"
Seems like the gov't should sue lockheed for failing to deliver the working satellite as contracted.
Hopefully that'll happen (which will probably leave that worker jobless) and we'll get some of our tax dollars back.
Shhh... I can dream!
Must be a really small rag or really big fuel line. Seriously, how would this happen? It's a freaking satellite engine, not the shuttle main.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Isn't this sort of like asking if a $5 wrench could wreck a car engine if it were left inside of a cylinder? Is anybody going to say "no"?
And yes, I went with the car analogy right from the start. Deal with it.
I read the internet for the articles.
It's hard. Any little thing that goes wrong will likely cause the whole thing not to work.
That's why it's rocket science.
Who puts an engine together without a test fire? Seems to me that some simple checks would have prevented a very big waste of funds and effort. I guess it won't be a total waste if they can learn from it.
Assembly failure - leave a rag.
Inspection failure - did not check for rag.
Pre-flight final inspection - still did not find the rag.
Wow, complete failure all the way down the line from assembly to mating with the launch vehicle.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
At least one of the recent Soyuz failures was put down to a similar issue - debris left in a fuel line by a worker.
So, somebody can't come up with the used rag disposal accounting paperwork and the GAO concludes that it must have been left inside?
I mean, this kind of thing is good for sponges during surgery, why not satellite assembly?
So, the problem is the satellite is 'on the rag'?
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
FTA: "They didn’t know it at the time, but a fuel line had become clogged. The blockage “was most likely caused by a small piece of cloth inadvertently left in the line during the manufacturing process,” according to the Government Accountability Office." (bolding mine).
So no, we don't know that a dirty rag caused a two billion dollar satellite to fail. We think a fuel line became clogged, and some government bean-counter pulled the dirty-rag hypothesis straight out of their derriere so they could sign off on this one and go home.
Already been established that they were able to overcome the rag and get the satellite into a functional orbit where it can fulfill its mission objective. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av019/120103rescue.html
"Finally, it speaks to the size and age of the U.S. space arsenal that the Air Force felt it had no choice but to rescue AEHF-1 instead of replace it with a back-up spacecraft. 'The asset inventory is getting so tight that they spent months limping the heap to its proper orbit,' the insider lamented."
Look guys, before you throw away (replace with a backup) a $2 Billion satellite, I damn well hope you try some pretty heroic measures. Those are my tax dollars in (the wrong) orbit! So I'm very glad you didn't have (to use) a backup satellite.
Anyway, does anyone know if the low power thrusters which were eventually used to put this satellite into the correct orbit used the same fuel tank as the clogged thruster? Otherwise 1) I'm very surprised they had enough fuel to get there and 2) they would probably have very little left to last the lifetime of the mission. So let's hope that all the thrusters used a central (hydrazine?) fuel tank and there's plenty left.
Space is hard and while the U.S. program has certainly had its ups and downs at least it hasn't seen the near total collapse as what happened to the Ruskies. They had quite a bad year last year and that blogger walking around their factory just exposed their problems more. If Mars is going to be a "Red" planet it will because of China not Russia.
A Dirty Rag? C'mon - RTFA! "The blockage 'was most likely caused by a small piece of cloth inadvertently left in the line during the manufacturing process,' according to the Government Accountability Office."
That could mean a tiny fragment of fabric. It's not like they put a rag in the gas tank to keep gas from leaking out. sheesh.
So why do they not check the forms before launching the satellite into orbit?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
We must be increasingly on the alert to prevent our enemies from taking over our satellite fuel lines, thus knocking out our military communications. Mr. President, we must not allow a dirty rag gap!
just like in invasive surgery, there would be a known count of 'sponges' and after buttoning up, they had all better be accounted for.
Billions of dollars in technology, but nobody with an air nozzle hooked up to an air compressor found at any car mechanic's shop to blow out a fuel line.
I8-D
Why do they dismiss the possibility of alien parasites that look like rags and feed on satellite engine fuel?
Reminds me about all those stories of bottles put inside cars during assembly. Here's a funny one (albeit fictional):
A man goes to a car dealership one day after inheriting a good deal of money (or after a great business deal, whatever -- he has a lot of money somehow). After looking around the lot, he picks out the nicest, newest, fanciest, most expensive car he can. He pays cash up front and drives out of the dealership in the new car.
On his way home, he starts hearing a rattling sound -- something must be wrong. So he turns around and goes right back to the dealer. The dealer is of course very sorry, and offers to either fix the car or let the man take a different one while they order a replacement. The man really wants the car, so he just has the guy fix it. Two hours later, the mechanics give the car back, saying they couldn't find a thing wrong with it. The man is a bit wary, but he drives home. Whatever the rattle is, it has stopped.
A day or so later, the rattle starts again. He takes it to the dealership, and they still can't find anything wrong with it. This continues for a number of weeks -- sometimes the rattle even goes away on its own. Anyway, after nearly two months of it, the dealer is very upset -- he doesn't want to get a bad reputation. So he orders a replacement and exchanges it with the man for the malfunctional car.
Then he orders the mechanics in the shop to do a complete tear-down to figure out the problem. They begin taking the car apart, piece by piece, but they can't find anything -- until they take apart the door. Inside, they find a piece of metal pipe, along with a note. Written on the note, in a scrawling, worker's hand is: "So, you finally found the rattle, you rich son-of-a-bitch."
My uncle was in cancer remission for >20ys when the US-VA went in to fix a simple abdominal hernia. After they sewed him up, he was okay for a couple of weeks, but then got very sick. An infection was ravaging his body and the doctors could not localize the infection. After months of antibiotics, they found the rags and removed them and scooped out all the necrosing tissue. By this time, his immune system had sunken so low that the cancer was able to make a come back which ended up killing him (after months of chemo).
All this to say.. forgotten rags (and implements) are a pretty significant problem in many disciplines (not just fuel lines), and why many operating rooms now have a "time out" materials count in pre and post-op. Maybe launch pad protocols should adopt the same.
Tweeks
The airlines did it and improved by amazing amounts (nobody remembers how bad it was) and the things were much less complex to fly back in those days; the pilots were insulted by it as well. CHECKLISTS WORK.
Something that important should involve multiple checklists; to error is human no matter how good and smart you are. Doctors are the most arrogant pricks I've ever met so they'll put up a huge fight and have a hard time admitting it when the error rate goes down by half. It likely would go down by half; that is how badly it is needed.
Nurses too... a friend of mine fought off his nurse violently (as much as he had strength post op) she had to call people in to hold him down and sedate him and luckily somebody heard his screams and READ the chart and realized she had the wrong person! he would have died and without a proper autopsy the cause wouldn't have been known. Mistakes killed my father too. Checklists must be mandatory by law like the pilots who have no issue with them today.
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